Choosing Happiness

I've found myself rather anxious as of late, and I decided today that I wanted to do what I could to fix this recent development. I started out by reading a talk by Bruce R. McConkie, and ended by looking up the difference between happiness and joy. The thought came to me that:

"Happiness is a choice we make every day. We can choose to look around and be grateful for what we have, or we can wish we had something else. Choosing to be happy brings joy into our lives, and only when we choose to do so will we find peace."

Wow. So all this time I've been stressing out because I was not just magically feeling overwhelmed by happiness, when really what it comes down to is that it is MY decision whether or not I am going to be happy?

If I can decide to be happy in every moment of every day, then I can feel the a measure of joy; and if I can feel joy, then I can find peace. That sounds pretty simple, right?

I found another blog post titled "I Choose Joy" (You can read the whole thing here) that I thought was pretty cool. In it she says:

"Joy is not happiness. Happiness to me is a momentary feeling. I felt happy when I had a good day or a good time with my family, etc. Joy is much more deep and abiding. You can have joy even in the darkest moments. I would say it is similar to peace."

Happiness is a choice we make. We can choose in every situation to find happiness and joy or to not. One of the phrases I live my life by (although apparently some days I need reminding) is this: For every moment of sadness, There is a moment of happiness lost.

So there you have it. No matter how complicated life gets sometimes, it's always nice to be able to kick back and get back to the basics. If we can just remember to choose to be happy, we can find joy and peace in even the darkest or most challenging moments in our lives. I know I'm going to re-focus my life and choose to be happy more often, and I hope you all can do the same!



By the way, you should check this out. I think it's pretty great. :)

Have a great day!