The happiest people don’t have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything.

The elusive pursuit of happiness is perhaps one of the most misunderstood variables in life. Our culture continually reinforces that true happiness stems from vast wealth and the aggregation of exquisite trinkets and collectibles.

As we grow older, the realization that this pursuit is in and of it’s self just one of life’s many pathways, becomes more evident over time.

There is no question that money solves problems and with problems out of the way, greater happiness is potentially possible.

But, as quickly as we might accept that as being a de facto variable, it is even more apparent, watching some of those who have the most toys, self destruct on the public stage out of a massive vacancy of character and scruples.

I believe it is easy to continually foster our delusion that happiness comes with trinkets, but the wisdom of the masters lies in direct conflict with this premise.

There are hundreds of aphorisms that make it very clear that happiness is not a place, nor is it a destination. Happiness is a state of mind. Anyone can find a pathway to this if they understand what happiness truly is.

We only have a limited number of trips around the sun before our physical body expires. Each of the 365 days that make up that trip are populated with 86,400 seconds. The percentage of those seconds spent in happiness can be modified to our respective benefit through mindset.

The choice that we make in each of those precious seconds is the metric by which our happiness is achieved. We may opt to spend them in a state of stress, confusion, panic, despair. But that does not have to be the case.

And it is easy to write off our ability to control any of that by falling back on the external variables in our life that is making life miserable at that moment.

Viktor Frankl lived through and survived the horrors at Auschwitz. His quotations are jammed full of philosophy that reinforces this on all levels:

“A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the ‘why’ for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any ‘how.’”

In contrast, you can look at so many of the celebrities in Hollywood or politicians nationwide, who have escalated in their financial achievements far above and beyond the average person. And as you probe deeper into many of their lives, you will witness intense despair, fear, vacancy, lonliness and the inability to even begin to understand what happiness is…beyond an ever-growing collection of trinkets.

I think Wayne Dyer still says it the best: “Abundance is not something we acquire, it’s some thing we tune into.“

Here’s hoping that your Monday leads you to a deeper appreciation of all of the amazing things that currently make up your life. You have everything in your power to be happy, you just need to tune in.😊

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