“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.”
- Denis Waitley
That quote was in the signature line of a friend’s email early this morning and it just touched me in honesty and truth. So often we allow our happiness to be wrapped up in things outside of ourselves, wrapped up in material things or other people or traveling to get away from our woes, etc. I try to be conscious of this and generally speaking I think I do a pretty good job. Oh, I fall short, but most of the time I’m fully able to own my happiness or lack thereof as a result of my own attitude and outlook.
Over the weekend, I was given the opportunity to live every minute and experience that happiness by fully embracing the weather outside our windows. Snowy and grey one minute, gloriously sunny the next. I truly was joyous for each bit of weather extreme.
Of course the gift of homegrown, seedless raspberry jam from a friend followed by a very long conversation about gardening didn’t hurt either. It was the gift, it was the connection with someone who gets that happiness comes in the forms of simple things in life. I hope that whatever traditions you’re engaging or skipping this time of year that you find that simple happiness that truly only comes from within.
