In Others’ Words: The Certainty of Happiness

What determines your happiness: your circumstances or your attitude?

I would have to say there were times … are times … I allow my circumstances to determine whether I’m happy or not.

Things go right — the way I want them to go — and I’m happy. All good.

Things go wrong? I’m fighting against the drag of my emotions. And sometimes … sometimes, I let the discouraged, displeased, disappointed reactions rule the day.

There are times I can control my circumstances … and times I can’t. But I can control my attitude. (And when I can’t, well, that’s a good time to be quiet. Very, very quiet.)

Recently, I traveled with my agent to visit my publisher in Chicago. We flew into Chicago O’Hare Airport, which I try to avoid whenever I travel. When your publisher is in Chicago, Chicago O’Hare is unavoidable.

The trip in? No problem. The trip back to Denver? Delayed. That’s when I started getting a bit tense, especially because it was snowing. My agent? She smiled and said, “Don’t stress about what you can’t control.”

Good attitude, right?

I can’t control the weather. I also had no control over our delayed flight. N-O-N-E. We’d either make it back to Colorado that night, or we wouldn’t.

Want to know what I did?

I followed her lead and I faked the right attitude — and we were both happier. 

In Your Words: What attitude helps you be happy when circumstances are working against you?

 

In Others' Words: The Certainty of Happiness https://wp.me/p63waO-2Ch #perspective #quotes
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'A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.' quote by Hugh Downs https://wp.me/p63waO-2Ch #happiness #perspective
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