Be positive

  As an old saying goes, “Happiness is not the absence of problems, but the ability to deal with them.” Why is difficult to define, or rather discover and achieve happiness? I maintain the major determinant lies in a person’s attitudes.

There is little correlation between the circumstance of people’s lives and how happy they are. Instead, happiness lies in the struggle to be happy. To demonstrate, people sometimes go to extremes, and frantically pursue money, power, high social status, and so on, which are all symbols of success—but never of happiness. Perhaps if they shifted their life’s goal from ultimate success to unswerving efforts and to a confidence that they will be successful one day they would be a great deal happier.

Besides defining it, how do I achieve happiness? There is little doubt that various people have diverse ways of going about this task. As for me, the most significant secret is realizing that happiness is a by-product of something else. The most obvious sources are those pursuits that give our lives a purpose. These can be anything from playing tennis to studying insects. The more passions we have, the more happiness we are likely to experience.