Happiness is a Decision

I'd like to share with you an insight that was brought to me by an Australian guy while I was living in an ashram in India. An ashram for those of you who don't know is like a Hindu monestary. Anyway so it was late at night, and being a no drinking, no smoking kind of place, and me being a drinking, smoking kind of guy, I was underneath a palm tree a hundred meters from the ashram, out of sight. The ashram was in Kerala, which is in the south of india so it was pretty hot and I was gazing at the night sky.

"Got a light?" came the voice of another smoker, who I had noticed looking around the area. He was Australian, late 30s. It was one of those nights for pondering existence and the setting was definitely apt, so we quickly got into a philisophical conversation. After a while he asked me what I was trying to acheive at the ashram, especially when I was ignoring the rules. I had been feeling kinda low back home, and I told him that I left in the pursuit of some happiness elsewhere. He asked me what happiness looks like and how I'd know when I'd found it. I told him that I supposed happiness was satisfaction with my life, my creative outputs, my direction and a few other things.

He quickly rebuked me when he heard "satisfaction", asking me how long satisfaction lasted, and how I could keep hold of it when life is always changing and it's human nature for satisfaction to run out, especially when it is being searched for. I said I didn't know and asked him what he thought happiness was. He told me he thought happiness was a decision.

He said you can look at your life from any number of different perspectives, compare it to others and analyse it in different ways. If you decide it is missing something that it requires for you to be happy, you will be unhappy. If you just decide "I am happy", then you will be happy. It seems kind of basic when I write it out like this, but the message has stayed with me what must be 4 years now. It could that all that is stopping you from being happy, is deciding that you are happy. You can either think "ah I wish I had this, or that that was different" or you can think "I'm glad I have this, and it's awesome that I have that", that choice is up to you.

Anyway it was late and I couldn't sleep so I thought I'd dig this out of my brain. Hope it was of use to at least one of you :)
I normally write futurology articles, follow me for those and for the occasional random thing like this!