As I've gone through life with my consistent struggle for self-improvement, I have come to many crucial realizations. There is one realization, however, that I think triumphs the rest, one revelation that's changed my life forever. It was the moment I realized the truth of the well-known quote, "We are only as happy as we make up our minds to be."
It was the moment I realized that everything I had held true for so long, every belief I had on the promise of happiness, was wrong. It was the moment that I truly and wholeheartedly realized that happiness isn't something we find outside ourselves or even inside ourselves. It is just the opposite: It is something that we create in ourselves.
This is a very easy concept to interpret but an extremely hard one to grasp. We have gone through life believing the misconception that external circumstances define our happiness. We have let our life be the creator of our happiness and to believe this is to believe that our happiness relies on something out of our control.
Our life circumstances depend on our happiness; our happiness doesn't depend on them. Create your own happiness, and you will be surprised to see how it manifests in your life. As anything else though, it is easier said than done. The hard part, though, isn't what you would think it would be. The hard part isn't realizing how to make yourself happy; the hard part is truly and genuinely accepting that you are even capable of making yourself happy. Outsmart what logic has always told you and convince yourself that you create your own happiness. It's as simple as that.
Trust that you are the creator of your happiness, decide that happy is what you want to be and happy is exactly what you will be. It is a liberating realization that it is rooted in our minds — and not the result of something outside ourselves — because its permanence is assured. If you are given it, you can have it taken, and if you find it, you can lose it. It is only if you create it that its existence will be forever.
If you have enough faith in the power of your mind, there will be a moment in time when you finally and genuinely understand the simplicity of happiness. And I promise, that day, just like mine, will be one of the greatest of your life. There is nothing more important than the promise of happiness, so create it in your mind and watch it spread to your heart.
Posts in Gator Minds appear on Mondays.
