What you see is what you get. You already know this. See beauty in the world, and your world is beautiful. See trouble, and you see and have trouble.

As it is, in the world, you may say that no one misses out on trouble. Who can argue this? Nevertheless, someone in straits worse than yours may be happier than you. What you see is what you have.

Your happiness in life comes from more than your situation and the conditions under which you live. It would seem that your happiness comes from more like your conditioning and certain habits you have fallen into. What are you looking for? Are you looking for the past to repeat itself, or are you looking forward to something more, maybe even entirely new? Knock on the door before you that says Happiness.

Happiness comes from deeper than the events in your life. As in music, there are many tones played in life. Now the question is: What do you major in? Where do you spend your time and thought? on the high notes or the low notes? on the drums or the clanging or overtures and crescendos? You do have a choice of what music you play and your emphases on the life you live.

You can go to the opera or a jazz club. You can choose where you spend your thoughts, and your thoughts add up to your life. The quality of your life amounts to your thoughts. Your life is tragic when you say it is. Your life is beautiful when you say it is. Life can certainly give you joy. Claim joy more than you claim heartache.

You can focus on mosquitoes and gnats and flies that bug you. You can focus on a sunrise, the blue of the sky, and life unfolding. It is your choice. You can count your blessings, or discount them and, thus, discount your life. How you personally feel about your life is the sum-total of your life. There it is. I have said it. What you think of your life is what it is.

You can be poor and have a happy life. You can be a rich man and suffer extremely. You can be healthy and unhappy. You can be sick and still have happiness. This is what free will means, that you have choices. Willy-nilly, you make your choices. You may foist responsibility for your choices on the past and on other people, yet ultimately all the choices you make are yours to make. Make them.

You are the surveyor of your life. You can uplift life or you can badmouth it.

Much of the time you are not really thinking of the choices you make. You make them habitually, even automatically.

It has been said before. You can focus on the weeds, or you can focus on the daisies. You can love the dandelions even in your front yard. You can love mud. When you were a kid, you loved to stomp in mud.

When something in your life seems to be taken away from you, you might well begin to value it more than your habit allowed. It could be safe to say that it’s a good idea to appreciate now while you have what you have. This is counting your blessings. Perhaps you have been counting flaws. It is so easy to point out flaws. Make it easy to point out blessings. Point them out to yourself. Count your blessings on your fingers and your toes and do it again. Make light of flaws. Acknowledge a long line-up of your blessings and say, “Thank You, God.”