The Secret to Instant Happiness

“We don’t need to wait to be happy until we reach some future point; happiness is already available to us—all the time.”  Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Basically from the beginning of time, the pursuit of happiness has been one of mankind’s greatest quests.  People have long tried to find true joy and happiness in life.  Today, I believe this desire for happiness persists and perhaps the search for it is more widespread and diverse now than ever before. 

The reality is most of us do not allow ourselves to be happy.  Instead we like to fool ourselves in to believing that happiness will someday come as if it is some type of destination or switch that is flipped once we arrive at some place in time.   We tell ourselves, “once I have a new job”, or “get a promotion”, or “have X amount of money”, or “get married”, or “retire”, or “go on vacation”, then will I be happy.  We delay our happiness and pin it on some future event in life.   When we do this, often times, happiness never really comes. 

Instead of holding off on our happiness until some specific event occurs we should decide to be happy now.  This is not always easy but is possible.  I believe regardless of our current circumstances or where we are currently in our journey of life we can be happy now if we choose to be. 

Happiness is in fact a choice and we are ultimately in charge of it.  We can actually decide to be happy or not even before the promotion, money, marriage, etc.  Again too often we do not allow ourselves to be happy.  We delay it, put it off, or look to justify why we cannot.  Sometimes this is because of our culture or our society that tells us we cannot be happy if this or that happens or until we have this or that.  Believing these lies will surely lead to unhappiness but if we can see them for what they are, we can be happy without delay. 

Each and every day, no matter the current difficulties in life, we can find things to be grateful for if we want to.  When we are grateful, we are happy.  Each day we can find good things around us.  And when we focus on the good rather than the bad, we can be happy.  Each day we can find things that can fill our hearts with joy if we allow them to, and when we do, we can be happy.  Because of this, we can be happy now—there is no need to wait. 

Happiness is a choice and we are ultimately responsible for it in our lives.  If we are happy, great!!  If we are not, why?  Waiting to be or delaying happiness is silly.  So let’s not wait—choose to be happy now!