Choose Happiness

It’s official – lots of folks in Texas are unhappy. Who knew?

The United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network has just published the 2013 World Happiness Report. Researchers analyzed data on happiness from people living in more than 150 countries. (Nobody asked me. Did they ask you?)

The five happiest countries are Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The United States ranked as No. 17. If more Texans were happy, the ranking might have improved. We are slightly happier than Ireland (No. 18) and a little less happy than Mexico (No. 16).

Apparently a lot of people never got the word that happiness is a state of mind – not a condition.
The happiest person I know is a 92 year-old widow, totally blind, living in a nursing home. She also lives with a multitude of ailments and pain. She never had siblings or children. A retired school teacher, she tells me her students were her children. On one of my regular visits, I asked her why she is always smiling and cheerful.

“It’s a choice I make,” she said. “Every morning when I wake up, I choose to be happy. Then I count my blessings. My neat, comfortable room is arranged so that I know exactly where everything is. And I love my window. I can’t see anything out of it, but I feel the glass panes – warm in summer and cold in winter, and I imagine the view. I hear birds singing and children playing in the near-by park. I’m served good food daily and my medications are furnished on time.

“Can you imagine the kindness shown in assigning a blind person a room with a window? Of course I’m happy!”

Yes, some people in Texas are unhappy – but not all.