Happiness

Most people measure their happiness in terms of physical pleasure and material possession. Could they win some visible goal which they have set on the horizon, how happy they could be! Lacking this gift or that circumstance, they would be miserable. If happiness is to be so measured, I who cannot hear or see have every reason to sit in a corner with folded hands and weep. If I am happy in spite of my deprivations, if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith, so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life, — if, in short, I am an optimist, my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing. --Helen Keller 

We should not base our happiness in what we have or don't have. I have had many good things happen in my life as well as bad, and I am happy for both. God has taught me so much more through the bad things than the good. I appreciate the tough times because of what I have learned through them. My mom took her own life a little over 4 years ago. God held onto me the whole time. There were brief periods of time when our heavenly Father made Himself feel distant from me, but he was doing so to teach me to rely on Him so much more than I did before, and I did learn and I am still learning now how to fully rely on Him. We learn so much about ourselves and God through everything that happens in our lives, whether good or bad, big or small. I have had my times of wanting to turn my back on God, and He lets us question Him, because He knows without some questioning, we cannot have genuine faith.

A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships. -- Helen Keller

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. -- Helen Keller