PEBBLE
Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.
~Denis Waitley, shared by Darryl in New York
BOULDER
Life is constantly testing our devotion to happiness, with its variety of challenges, from small to ginormous. If you want to be happy, it’s essential you create a fiery will from within, harness a power of decisiveness, and choose to be your strongest self. Living a happy life takes a little effort at times. HAPPINESS IS NOT FOR NAMBY PAMBIES!
~Karen Salmansohn, shared online
PONDER
We’ve revisited happiness a few times over the years, and I try not to overdo it. But let’s be honest: most of us rank happiness pretty high on the “things we want out of life” list.
I’ve been wanting to share today’s quotes with you for a while. I love how they complement each other in how they frame happiness—grace on one side, grit on the other. The Pebble sees happiness as a spiritual presence rooted in love, grace, and gratitude. The Boulder flips that and says happiness takes effort—it’s a decision, a discipline, and not for namby pambies!
It’s easy to think we’ll be happy once the to-do list is done or the big challenge is behind us. But what if happiness is a spiritual fitness practice—something we train into, not drift into? That gives us more agency: we don’t have to wait for everything to be swell before we let joy find us.
There’ve been plenty of times I’ve noticed myself slipping into unhappiness, usually because life isn’t going how I expected. But when I catch it, and give myself that extra beat to reset, I can usually manage to turn a hard day into a happy one. This takes a little grace, a little grit, and some solid emotional pushups. Every time I manage it, I get a bit stronger, and that’s a bonus win.
I hope your day holds at least a few happy moments—and I hope you savor each one.
Peace,
Paul