As we live in a small village, we get the same delivery driver for many packages we order and he is a cheery guy who always makes time to chat and smile even when he has to deliver packages in awful weather conditions (we are in the UK after all and the weather here can be rather awful)
Anyway, I stopped him one day when he came to deliver a package and water was literally dripping down his face because of the horrendous rain, but he still smiled as he gave me the package.
“Tom”, I said, “how come you are always cheery? It’s a wonderful trait so please don’t lose it, but why are you always so happy?”
He replied, “Happiness is a choice! And I choose to be happy”
“I used to grumble all the time about life’s pressures and it didn’t achieve anything. All the moaning and grumbling did was make me even more depressed. So I decided enough is enough, I need to choose to be happy, even if problems appeared, I chose to control my attitude and I did! And life has been so much better ever since. Of course, I still get problems, but I don’t moan about them anymore. I just deal with them and that’s it. I keep my emotions out of it”
“I now don’t like mixing with people who are always moaning and groaning. If only more people were happy with life, the whole world would be a great place!”
What a wonderful attitude. Tom realised that moaning about life didn’t solve anything to do with whatever problem he encountered.
So instead he “chose” to be happy and deal with issues in a happy frame of mind. This made solving the problems he could influence so much easier and left him feeling so much better too without compounding any stress he may have felt.
Couldn’t we be more like Tom and keep the issue away from our emotions? And “choose” to be happy?
Of course, we can!