Making Life Ours

There is no secret recipe for happiness and contentment. The individuals who move through life joyously have not necessarily been blessed with lives of abundance, love, success, and prosperity. Such people have, however, been blessed with the ability to take the circumstances they’ve been handed and make them into something great. Our individual realities are colored by perception—delight and despair come from within rather than from without. Situations we regard as fortuitous please us while situations we judge inauspicious cause grief. Yet if we can look at all we have accomplished without dwelling on our perceived misfortune and make each new circumstance our own, the world as a whole becomes a brighter place. A simple shift in attitude can help us recognize and unearth the hidden potential for personal and outer world fulfillment in every event, every relationship, every duty, and every setback. The universe is often an unpredictable and chaotic place, and the human tendency is to focus on the negative. But life can be no more or less than what we make it. If we are working in a job we dislike, we can concentrate on the positive aspects of the position and approach our work with gusto. When faced with the prospect of undertaking a task we fear, we can view it as an opportunity to discover what we are truly capable of doing. Similarly, unexpected events, when viewed as surprises, can add flavor to our existence. By choosing to love life no matter what crosses our paths, we can create an atmosphere of jubilance. A change in perspective is all it takes to change our world, but we must be willing to adopt an optimistic, hopeful mind-set. To make a conscious decision to be happy is not enough. We must learn to observe life’s complexities through the eyes of a child seeing everything for the first time. We must furthermore divest ourselves of preconceived notions of what is good and what is bad so we can appreciate the rich insights concealed in each stage of our life’s journey. And we must strive to discover the dual joys of wanting what we have. As we gradually shift our perspective, our existence will be imbued with happiness and contentment that will remain with us forever.

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