Happiness comes from a conscious choice to live life joyfully.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Are people in general becoming less happy? Some say that modern living adds so much stress that people find less joy in life. Others say the opposite. What is truly important is for each of us to create or recover our own happiness.
Happiness is not something we can find or be given, but is something we create for ourselves, or don't.
Happiness is virtually unrelated to how much money we have, our type of work, our house, our possessions. If one is starving or homeless, it is very different, but once our minimum requirements are met, happiness comes not from material things, but from a conscious choice to live life joyfully.
Further reading: Ten Little Tips to Feel Happier Right Now
Happy Friends - Happy You
The Wisdom of Anne Frank
CHOICE - the fourth Point of Simply An Inspired Life
certainly when women had lower expectations, they were less likely to be disappointed and so were perhaps more content. now we have the idea that we can "have it all", and all at once (which is realistically unlikely)and feel like we are failures if we don't.
ReplyDeletei also think that we have to factor in that while women's opportunities outside the home have dramatically increased, men have not been so quick to share in home responsibilities. all too often, "women's rights" translates into having the expectation that we will both work outside the home AND handle all the household chores as well.
Dawn, thank you for your great comment. Your observation about what society "expects" of women is right-on.
ReplyDeleteOne of the great problems of life is EXPECTATIONS (Demands). Without doubt, others do make demands of each of us, man or woman. There will always be someone who makes demands of our time and energies.
I would like to offer two of my perspectives that apply equally to women and men, and that you will find expressed often in the 500+ messages posted at http://blog.DreamThisDay.com
1. There is nothing that any of us ever HAVE to do. Each of us, man or woman, chooses the roles we play, and what we make of our lives at each instant. Expectation and Tradition are burdens we take upon ourselves, or choose to throw off. http://blog.dreamthisday.com/2009/08/resilience-is-about-believing-in.html
I have no need to conform to the stereotypes others have defined for me.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
2. Each of us has a choice in all matters. Whether man or woman, I can choose where I live, my career, whether I marry or not and to whom, what I do at each instant of time - do I choose vanilla ice-cream or chocolate. Of course there are consequences for each decision, but each human chooses his or her actions at each instant whether consciously or from habit. http://blog.dreamthisday.com/2009/03/why-i-choose-to-believe-that-others-are.html