Gratitude Month - Choices

 

I have had one of those 'Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Days' today.   Work was more stressful than normal.   And I just got back from a quick trip to Urgent Care for an extremely painful bladder infection.   Too much information?   Sorry about that.

 

But in spite of all that, I want to choose to be happy.

 

I have been thinking a lot about a talk I heard recently.   The speaker talked about regrets that people have at the end of their lives.   He focused on three in particular.

 

1.   The regret that you didn't spend more time with the people you love.

2.  The regret that you didn't live up to your full potential.

3.  The regret that you didn't let yourself be happy.

 

It's the last one that was coming to mind as I was thinking about how much pain I was in at the Urgent Care.   The word 'let' is very interesting to me.   I think that it indicates that happiness is not just something that happens to you, but rather a choice.   Meaning you have control over how you will react in any given situation.  Will you allow it to make you cranky?   Sad?    Angry?  Will you allow it to control how you treat someone else who just happens to be next in line?

 

The Dalai Lama in his book The Art of Happiness says,

 

“Although you may not always be able to avoid difficult situations, you can modify the extent to which you can suffer by how you choose to respond to the situation.” 

I know that this is much easier said than done.  Believe me I know....I am a pretty irritable person, so it is something I really need to work on.

 

Just some food for thought.