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Many people find this difficult to grasp. Happiness is not dependent on external circumstances. There are people in extreme poverty or with serious health conditions that still experience happiness. On the other hand, we all have heard that many famous and rich people, who seem to “have it all”, suffer from depression.
No matter what our circumstances are, we always have the choice to decide how we want to react – whether we want to focus on what we have, or on that what we do not have. If we make our happiness dependent on external circumstances, we postpone it to the future and make it conditional upon things that are only partly, or not at all, in our control.
How about stopping what you are doing right now, thanking the universe for the fact that you are alive and deciding to be happy – right now. Would you like to give it a try? How does it feel?
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Previously published here and reprinted with the author’s permission.
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