“There are two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations.” – Jodi Picoult
Happiness is an emotional response to an outcome; if you win, you become happy. If you don’t, you become unhappy. It is an if-then, cause and effect proposition that is not sustainable because every time you attain a certain level of happiness, you raise the bar, and it is an endless loop. We also schedule and delay our happiness; we say when this happens, I will become happy. If this then that, Someday I’ll when so and so happens, I would be happy when I get married we change it to when we have kids, then when the kids leave home to when there are grandkids, there is always a reason to postpone. It is a constant moving target.
American Actor Matthew McConaughey in his thought provoking commencement speech to the 2015 University of Houston graduating students described happiness as:
“Happiness is an emotional response to an outcome — If I win I will be happy, if I don’t I won’t. An if-then, cause and effect, quid pro quo standard that we cannot sustain because we immediately raise it every time we attain it. You see, happiness demands a certain outcome, it is result reliant.”
“If happiness is what you’re after, then you are going to be let down frequently and be unhappy much of your time. Joy, though, is something else. It’s not a choice, not a response to some result, it is a constant. Joy is “the feeling we have from doing what we are fashioned to do,” no matter the outcome.”
Here are some great quotes on happiness:
- “It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.” – Dale Carnegie
- “Happiness is not a goal…it’s a by-product of a life well-lived.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
- “For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” – Mahatma Gandhi
- “True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” – Helen Keller
- “Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.” – Charles Dickens
- “Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” – Abraham Lincoln
- “Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values.” – Ayn Rand
- “Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
- “If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes. ” – Andrew Carnegie
- “There are two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations.” – Jodi Picoult
- “The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.” – Carl Sandburg
- “To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.” – Bertrand Russell
- “To be kind to all, to like many and love a few, to be needed and wanted by those we love, is certainly the nearest we can come to happiness.” – Mary Stuart
- “Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.” — Albert Schweitzer
- “Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn, or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.” — Denis Waitley
- “We can have peace if we let go of wanting to change the past and wanting to control the future.” — Lester Levinson
- “Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.” —Betty Smith
- “There is no stress in the world, only people thinking stressful thoughts and then acting on them.” —Dr. Wayne Dyer
- “Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here.” – Robert G. Ingersol
- “I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances.” —Martha Washington
- “Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- “If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.” —Charles de Montesquieu
- “The happiness of life is made up of the little charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment.” —Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- “The most important thing is to enjoy your life—to be happy—it’s all that matters.” — Audrey Hepburn
- “Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.” ―Martin Luther King Jr.
- “Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. ” ―William James
- “Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.” ―Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Happiness is like those palaces in fairytales whose gates are guarded by dragons: We must fight in order to conquer it.” ―Alexandre Dumas
All the Best in your quest to get better. Don’t Settle: Live with Passion.
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