One of life’s persistant myths is that things will be better when we get to a certain point we haven’t reached yet – like when the mortgage is paid off, when the kids leave home, when we make that sea change or take that trip around the World. But of course we’ve been telling ourselves that all our lives. There was a time when we couldn’t wait to go to school, then to leave school and get a job; or to get married, and then to get out of the marriage. It always seems that happiness is forever over the next hill, but when we get there we find it has moved somewhere else.
You’d think by now we would have learned that happiness is not a destination, it’s actually a journey; and the secret to getting the most out of it is awareness – disciplining ourselves to look at what we’ve got and everyday to give thanks to God for it.