Happiness, Get It?

A little boy I once heard of seemed to be happy most all his waking hours. Someone asked him, “Johnny, why are you always so happy?” His face turned solemn. Then, after he'd obviously searched his mind for an answer, he looked up and said, “Do I have to have a reason?”

 I have a canary who sings beautifully. Why? Is he happy or is he longing for something else, calling out for it? Bird keepers and breeders might give me answers but I’m not sure they’d be right. I think only my little Tommy can really tell me and he’s doing so in his own way, by singing. The trouble is I can’t translate what he says into my language. So, I simply care for him, talk to him occasionally and listen a lot. I choose to think he sings because he’s happy for the freedom he has, not sad for the kind of freedom he never had.

About happiness one dictionary says: “Feeling or showing pleasure or contentment. Having a sense of pleasure, confidence or satisfaction in a person, arrangement or situation.” 

I say happiness is something too great, too secret and often too personal to define. People can say to a happy person, “Well, no wonder you are happy; you have so much to be happy about.” So, then, how do you explain happiness under circumstances not so ideal? Another friend of mine put it this way: “Circumstances don’t make happiness; happiness makes circumstances.” 

I believe that because in my own experience I've found that a little happiness is like the water you pour into a pump to prime it. The little draws out more. By appreciating the circumstances I have, more good circumstances come my way. 

I’ve stopped trying to figure out how to get happiness but rather how to let it get me. Then I can say, "Now I get it!"