HAPPINESS IN THE SECULAR SENSE IS NOT VERY LONG

In reading the book "Happiness Is A Choice" Barry Kaufman

7 steps to overcome depression.

(Its a start)

(I received this from a friend earlier today)

1. Commit your life daily to the purpose of glorifying Jesus Christ.
2. Spend some time each day meditating on God's Word and applying it to your life.
3. Get rid of grudges daily.
4. Spend a little time nearly every day getting more intimate with your mate and children. Parents, brothers, sisters, and other close relatives should also have a high priority. Do all you can to resolve family conflicts.
5. Spend some time each week having fellowship and fun with at least one or two committed Christian friends of the same sex. If you are married, have fun with other married couples. In this way husband and wife can together benefit from intimacy with others.
6. Be involved in a daily routine (including work, play, housework, projects) that brings personal satisfaction to you. Be convinced that this routine is God's will and purpose for your life-your way of glorifying Him.
7. Do something nice for on special person each week. This kind deed can be physical(helping with a chore, for example), emotional (buying a book or giving counsel) or spiritual( having devotions together.

For anyone who personally knows Jesus Christ as his Savior, and lives by these biblical principles happiness is a choice.

Then I read on a blogger this from a mom.

1. I don’t like the intimations of happiness being a choice. Call me jaded if you want but I just don’t like the idea of someone telling a depressed mom that she made the “choice” to be depressed. Yeah, right. I CHOSE to have horrific thoughts about harming my children. I CHOSE to slide so far down my pole that I landed in a psych ward. Yeap, that’s me. Choosing to be horrifically clinically depressed with OCD thrown in just for kicks. Why? Cuz I like it there. I like it in the dark, all alone, milling over thoughts of how to hurt my kids, thinking that everyone is out to get me.
   C’MON.

And that does make sense doesn't it. Many do find themselves in a state of unhappiness, and before they know it, they have many of the symptoms of "DEPPRESSION." I fully undertstand that, don't you.

There are few who want to get into a state where they are "crushed under the load that sometimes life in general throws at them.

I don't know anyone who doesn't have situtations in their lives that if allowed would totally crush them into a state of worry, fear, and anxiety. While it is true we do personally get our selves in to situtations that will result in a lot of unhappen results. But most of the stuff in our lives come via someone other means.

While we create a lot of things in our lives that will cause of grief, worry, anxiety, there are a lot of events in our lives that are not of our causing and will result in the same problems.

Life isn’t about what it hands you. It’s about how you handle life. Looking at life through that lens would make it seem that happiness is a choice and to a certain extent it is a choice.

But sometimes life throws a curveball you just can’t avoid. So what are you to do? You have two choices. You can either let it knock you flat on your butt and stay there for awhile…..Or you can pick yourself up, dust off the dirt and mend the wounds, and go on your way.

But the longer you stay on your butt, the harder you are going to find the strength to get up.

So the scripture tells us to "examine ourselves daily to see where we are in living life." (2 Cor 7:1) We are to be like David in Psa. 51 we are to ask the Lord to "cleanse our heart daily." Psa 51:10. Psa 51:12 "Restore to me the joy of your salvation.""And sustain me with a willing spirit."

I am happy once are twice a day. If Tiger Woods win I am happy. I am happy if I get to talk to my children. I am unhappy if I hear what my children are telling me about there life. I am happy if Charity is happy. If I have $100 in the checking account I am happy.

I really don't focus so much on happiness. But there are ways to stay happy longer.

I read this earlier today:

• Every day, it seems, we're flooded with pop-psych advice about happiness. The relentless message is that there's something we're supposed to do to be happy -- make the right choices, or have the right set of beliefs about ourselves. Our Founding Fathers even wrote the pursuit of happiness into the Declaration of Independence.
• Coupled with this is the notion that happiness is a permanent condition. If we're not joyful all the time, we conclude there's a problem.Yet what most people experience is not a permanent state of happiness. It is something more ordinary, a mixture of what essayist Hugh Prather once called "unsolved problems, ambiguous victories and vague defeats -- with few moments of clear peace." J. Scott McKay

So I have learned happeness is a state of mind, and I am going to be happen sometimes, I am not going to to happen very long at a time. Happy could be described as the following ways

1. feeling or showing pleasure, contentment, or joy
2. causing or characterized by pleasure, contentment, or joy
3. feeling satisfied that something is right or has been done right
4. resulting unexpectedly in something pleasant or welcome
5. slightly drunk
6. used in formulae to express a hope that somebody will enjoy a special day or holiday
7. inclined to use a particular thing too readily or be too enthusiastic about a particular thing

Some one will say, "How are you doing?" I will say, "good." They might say, "Just good, not great." What do they mean by that? You can't force a person to be good, or great, or to be in high spirits.

If I am drunk, I could be really great in my mind, high in spirit. But it doesn't mean I am happy. (Of course I have never had a drink of Cool Light either.) No wonder I am never very happy.

So where we are, not happy about this post. Or can we be pleased with what we have said, because someone might be happy to read it?