Choose Happiness

Choose Happiness

Elizabeth Smart was a sheltered fourteen year old girl, sleeping peacefully in her home in Salt Lake City, Utah, when a man snuck into her house and took her. Elizabeth was kidnapped on June 5, 2002. She was starved, given drugs and alcohol, lied to, and raped daily for nine months. She had done nothing wrong, hurt no one, and certainly never done anything to deserve that. And yet she lived through this hell. Most would say her world was pretty horrible. They would probably guess she was traumatized and carried a host of problems and addictions because of her experience. Guess where she is now? She is not addicted to drugs or living a life of confusion and misery. She is, in fact, the president of the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, helping raise awareness and prevention for child kidnapping and abuse. She served a mission for her church, testified against her captors in court, and is now happily married. How could she overcome what she went through? Wouldn’t she, of all people, have the right to give up and say life wasn’t worth it? She didn’t. She forgave, she moved on, and she chose to be happy.

The most important thing we have is agency. We are born with love and the pursuit of happiness hardwired into us. The only world you have control over is the one you live in daily.  And here’s the best part; your world can be glorious. No matter who you are, no matter what you’ve been through, happiness can be yours.  Goodness can permeate the air around you and smiles can reflect off the walls wherever you walk. Light can make a home inside you and shine for the rest of the world, everyone else, to see, and to follow. You can life a glorious life and be a radiant person.

Happiness is not a possession, it is not a material thing. Happiness is a choice. Let me make this clear- you can choose today, right now, this second, to be happy; and that choice can last forever. Oh, it won’t be easy; but the best things never are. It is, however, very possible.

The point is this: you have the power. Things will get worse before they get better, but you have the courage to stick it out, to find that happiness. You have the right to that agency, so use it wisely. Great things come to those who are willing to struggle up the hard path, while those who meander on the easy one never get anywhere. You can turn your world from a rotting mass of disappointment to a garden of sunflowers if you want. It’s up to you. In the words of A.A. Milne, "You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."