You can make yourself happy or miserable - it's the same amount of effort.
Interpretation
Happiness is a choice that requires the same effort as misery.
In this quote, Ray Bradbury emphasizes the idea that one has the power to influence their own emotional state. By suggesting that happiness and misery both require effort, he encourages individuals to make a conscious choice to pursue happiness, highlighting the significance of perspective in shaping our experiences.
In practice
During a motivational speech about personal happiness.
I've written about 2,000 short stories; I've only published 300 and I feel I'm still learning. Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he'll eventually make some kind of career for himself as a writer. Ray Bradbury, 1967 interview (Doing the Math - that means for every story he sold, he wrote six "un-publishable" ones. Keep typing!)
I never went to college, so I went to the library.
There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.
I think the sun is a flower, That blooms for just one hour.
The first thing a writer should be is - excited. He should be a thing of fevers and enthusiasms. Without such vigor, he might as well be out picking peaches or digging ditches; God knows it'd be better for his health.
You can't try to do things; you simply must do them.
Smile, it's easier than explaning why you're sad
Joy, feeling one's own value, being appreciated and loved by others, feeling useful and capable of production are all factors of enormous value for the human soul.
What you’re believing in the moment creates your suffering or your happiness.
Celebration never need depend on outside circumstances. We need not wait for a special holiday or a formal occasion, nor a sunny and cloudless day. True celebration arises from a joy that is first experienced deep within, and spills over into an overflow of song and dance and laughter, and yes, even tears of gratitude.
I promise myself that I will enjoy every minute of the day that is given me to live.
I am so fresh in soul and spirit that life gushes and bubbles around me in a thousand springs.
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