Happiness is a decision, not an experience. You can decide to be happy without what you thought you needed in order to be happy, and you will be. Your experience is the result of your decision, not the cause of it.
Interpretation
Happiness comes from a conscious choice rather than external circumstances.
This quote emphasizes that happiness is not dependent on specific experiences or conditions, but rather it is a decision one makes. By understanding that our happiness is rooted in our choices, we can cultivate a positive mindset regardless of our circumstances, allowing us to find joy in the present moment.
In practice
During a motivational speech about self-empowerment.
What you hope, you will eventually believe. _x000D_ What you believe you will eventually know. What you know, you will eventually create. What you create, _x000D_ you will eventually experience. What you experience, _x000D_ you will eventually express. What you express, _x000D_ you will eventually become. _x000D_ This is the formula for all of life.
Fear and guilt are your only enemies. Love and awareness are your true friends. Do not confuse one with the other, for one will kill you, while the other gives you life.
Your whole life is a message. Every act is an act of self-definition . Everything you think, say and do sends a message about you.
Love lets go. Need holds on. This is the way you can tell the difference between need and love. Let go of expectation, let go of requirements and rules and regulations that you would impose on your loved ones.
When you find peace within, you also find that you can do without. This means simply that you no longer need the things of your outside world, and not needing is a great freedom.
Giving up is not the answer. Neither is giving in. Stand your ground. There is a way of doing that without having to be combative. There is a way of hanging on to your true self, and demonstrating it, without resorting to aggression. But giving up and giving in is not the way. Simply and quietly claiming your right to be You is the way.
I am still determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may be.
I am not happy, and the quest for happiness as a principal objective is not part of my world. Of course, ever since I can remember, I have done what I felt like doing.
It isn't the great big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones--I've discovered the true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now. Not to be for ever regretting the past, or anticipating the future; but to get the most that you can out of this very instant.
Some take their gold in minted mold, and some in harps thereafter, but give me mine in bubbles fine and keep the change in laughter.
The happiest people are those who have learned to mix play with their work and to bind the two together with enthusiasm.
Repose, leisure, peace, belong among the elements of happiness. If we have not escaped from harried rush, from mad pursuit, from unrest, from the necessity of care, we are not happy. And what of contemplation? Its very premise is freedom from the fetters of workaday busyness. Moreover, it itself actualizes this freedom by virtue of being intuition.
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