As the Team Play Captain for our office lottery pool, I'm often party to conversations about what the contributor will do if he or she wins.
A lot of times, the conversations are around how, depending upon the number of participants and the size of the lottery pool, the prize would be either too big or not big enough for what the winner wants to do with it.
This often leads to talk about how even a prize of $50,000, or some other equally divine amount, wouldn't nearly be enough to retire on, and hence not even worth winning.
This always makes me laugh -- how we, as humans, are so controlling that we try to control our luck. And how, even before we've won, we've already decided that whatever we're going to get isn't enough. We don't even have the prize in hand, and already we're sure that it's going to be disappointing.
I ripped a page out of my Zen Day by Day calendar the other day and posted it on my fridge.
It says: If you're not happy now, you never will be.
How true is that?
If I continue to wait for all my meticulously devised external conditions to be met before I allow myself a glimmer of happiness, well...you can see where this is going.
It's true, as Abraham Lincoln said, that most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
So today, I choose happy.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Your last line sums it all up: Happiness is a choice.
I'm happy with what I have right now. Sure there's always more I want but I'm not unhappy if I don't get it. Money included.
$50, $100, $1000 or $50,000 would all be helpful in some way right now. It's our happiness right now that we need to focus on. Worry about happiness in retirement when and IF you get there.
Believe it or not, I had a falling out with someone when I described my life as "perfect".
they were too cynical to believe me, and too stubborn to listen to my rationale.
On one hand it saddens me that they no longer want to be friends, but all the same I ask myself if that's the sort of friend I want to have.
Post a Comment