Happy go lucky

God asks no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice. You must take it. The only choice is how.

The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.
--Both quotes are by Henry Ward Beecher

Over Christmas one year we played a question game at the Wingfields' house. One of the questions was, "If you could, what would you change about your life?" I answered that I wish I knew French better, but besides that, there is nothing else I would change. Burt (Kyle's dad) pointed out that I have a pretty darn good life if my biggest concern is that I don't speak enough French. I couldn't agree more.


God has blessed me with so, so many wonderful things in my life, but the thing I am most thankful to have been born with is my good attitude. Sometimes people tease me about how happy I am, but I can't help it. I do try to channel my mind to think positive thoughts, but most of my happiness just comes from the personality I was born with. I feel bad for negative people because I really don't think they can change their attitudes that much -- they were born that way, just the same way I was born happy.


I sometimes wonder if I would be this happy if I didn't have such a wonderful, easy life, but I think I would be. There are plenty of people with easy lives that still don't seem happy. An odd personality trait that I seem to have that helps my happiness is that I can always think of someone worse off than I am. Although it sounds like I am putting someone else down, it really helps me to keep things in perspective with any situation. Yes, each of us has struggles, but in the big picture, especially when looking at how so many people in the rest of the world suffer, we really have nothing to complain about.