Happiness Creates
Its Own Success

“It is not in doing what you like but in liking what you do  
that is the secret of happiness.”  
~ James M. Barrie 

Without happiness, life is incomplete. You can have all the riches in the world and achieve all the fame and awards possible; but, if you cannot find happiness in your life those achievements, riches, and awards will never provide comfort or satisfaction. You will be nothing more than a wandering generality in a world of unbridled despair. 

B.C. Forbes discovered, “‘A happy man or woman,’ said Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘is a better thing to find than a five-pound note. He or she is radiating focus of goodwill and their entrance into a room is as though another candle has been lighted.’ Learn to be cheerful and you will come near being happy. Life’s race can best be run with a light heart and a buoyant countenance. Cheerfulness will open a door when other keys fail.”  What sage advice. Happiness creates its own success. It’s our attitude toward our challenges that will make the final decision. 

Happiness then is clearly a personal choice. Its reality is not automatic by any means. Even Benjamin Franklin said that happiness was something that each and every person had to catch for themselves. It is the one truth that can never be confused. Happiness is an internal taste that quenches the thirst of those who truly embrace its refreshing waters. As John Rogers and Peter McWilliams proclaimed, “Happiness is looking at all the good and bad in any given moment—both within us and around us—and then choosing to focus upon the good.”   

So the question becomes, “Have you really caught happiness?” Are you experiencing the joy and contentment that happiness brings or is there no life in your living? Understand that happiness is a blessing. It can be found regardless of where you are or what your circumstances may be. You must live in the moment. You must taste its essence and then swallow its content to fulfill the hunger that consumes your living. Realize that it may not occur where you first look; but, if you expand your search field, you will find it waiting for you to embrace it. As Duncan Stuart proclaimed, “Happiness is a dividend on a well-invested life.”