April 3

  

Today's quotation:

Happiness is not in our circumstances, but in ourselves.
It is not something we see, like a rainbow, or feel, like
the heat of a fire.  Happiness is something we are.

John B. Sheerin

Today's Meditation:

I love these lines, especially the last sentence.  "Happiness is something we are."  Very simple, yet very profound, especially in the world that we live in that focuses so much on doing and having, usually at the expense of allowing us to focus on what we are.  We get so caught up in doing the tasks and getting things that we want or think we need that we usually don't even stop to think of just what we are when we spend our time that way.

Unfortunately, we don't have all that many good examples to follow.  The people that our cultures label as "successful" are the ones who have become wealthy or famous or celebrities, but the truly successful people--those who have become happy and who are living happy, loving, giving lives--aren't often featured in our newspapers or newscasts.  We see the politicians and the criminals and the athletes and the entertainment "stars," but we don't see the people who can truly inspire us to be happy by being just who we are.

You can't buy happiness, and you can't take a picture of it.  You can't pack it up in a box and send it off to your best friend.  You can't give it as a birthday gift, and you can't cut it in half and give some to someone who needs it.

You can allow yourself to be, and to be happy.  You then will shine like a beacon of peace and hope, and when others see that you are happy, they will start observing you more closely to see just what it is that makes you happy.  And you can serve as an example for all those others who know that there's something missing, but who don't realize that what's missing is their ability to be themselves, their ability to just be and to be happy.
Questions to consider:

Do you focus more on what you do or on what you are?

How can we learn to be more effectively?  How can we look past
our circumstances to see who we are?

Why might we see happiness as something outside of ourselves?
For further thought:

Happiness cannot come from without.  It must come from within.
It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us
which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel
and do, first for the other person and then for ourselves.

Helen Keller
   
  

  

 




Now available from Living Life Fully Publications:
Over a year of "Just for Today" passages from our popular e-mail daily quotations.  Thoughts and ideas that you can use to help to make your day brighter and more fulfilling as you focus on different ways of giving and awareness of the blessings in your life!  Click on the image to the left for the print version.
Kindle Version       -       Nook Version
Also available:  Daily Meditations, Year One
One full year's worth of our daily meditations that until now have been available only on our site or through e-mail.  Now you can have the entire first year's worth of daily meditations for just $3.99 on your Kindle or Nook.  (There is no print version available yet.)