What are we looking for?

I'll keep this one fairly short. Lately I've been thinking a lot about the way everyone seems to be searching for something, and very few people seem to be truly happy with their lives. This is not a blog on religion. Believe me, I know plenty of religious people who are absolutely miserable. In fact, I genuinely believe that happiness has little or nothing to do with religion, but more with obtaining peace. In that context, happiness is relative. What brings you peace may not be what brings me peace and vice versa. Here's the problem, though--we spend too much energy trying to find external things that we think may make us happy, and end up more unhappy than ever. I've seen this pattern repeated in my life a number of times. I start thinking, "Well, if I do such and such, I'll be happy," or "If I could just have ____, then I'll be happy." You've made the same statements before, right? My question is this--When does happiness become a decision, and not a circumstance? Circumstances change by the second. One moment, everything is great, the next moment, everything hits the fan and the train comes off the tracks. Life is funny that way, very inconsistent. That's why people who genuinely have peace and truly feel happy have made the decision to be peaceful and happy, no matter what happens. If I choose to, I can find peace in the most adverse of situations. The most powerful force known to man is the choice. Once we, as human beings, make a choice, no one can reverse it or control it. Understand my point? It's more simple than it is easy sometimes, but it's true, nonetheless. We have the ability and power to be happy and peaceful if we just decide to do it. It's a matter of responsibility, really. We stop blaming the world around us for our unhappiness. We stop blaming our pasts and whatever may have happened to us for our unhappiness. Once we grab hold of the power of choice, we live the way I believe God intended for us to live--peacefully and with accountability. Not because everything around us is all sunshine and rainbows, because life can be incredibly hard sometimes. But because everything inside us is peaceful as a result of the choice we made to be peaceful.

I don't want to live my life unhappy. Things are going to happen to me that can dramatically effect my happiness, but at the end of the day, the choice is mine to be happy or not. I choose happy. Life is better that way, don't you think?