What’s on your Christmas list this year? Is it a new car, a diamond ring, a kitchen set, the newest designer shoes? What is it that you feel will make you happy and your life a little bit easier? I have asked this question to several people and have gotten several different answers. But the one thing that all of them boiled down to was that they wanted something that would bring them more joy and satisfaction in life. Each person wanted a materialistic thing that they feel will make them enjoy life more. My next question to them was if they got what they asked for how long would it be before they were wanting something else to bring them joy and satisfaction. I got a puzzling look from each of them when I asked that question.

We tend to look for what will bring us joy and satisfaction in all the wrong places. We think that if we had a better car, a bigger house, finer clothes, that we would be happy and content with life. The only problem is that kind of happiness never last long. After awhile we no longer feel the joy and satisfaction that we felt when we first got the item. It soon becomes not good enough or old and we are on the search again. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can find and have a lasting joy and satisfaction with life that no materialistic thing can offer. We can get to a place in life that we feel no need for anything to make us enjoy life. We can be completely satisfied and content with life no matter what kind of material things that we have or do not have.

Joy comes from within us and not from around us. Sometimes all we need is a different perspective or a change in our focus. As long as we look for lasting joy, contentment, or satisfaction from things we will never find it. All of us are only one decision away from having a joy and contentment that we will never find anywhere else. A decision that we are going to enjoy life just as it is. A decision that we are going to focus on what we do have instead of what we don’t have. A decision that we are going to enjoy our life eventhough it is not perfect. A decision that we are going to love ourselves eventhough we aren’t perfect. A decision that eventhough we don’t have all that we want, we are going to be happy with what we do have. A decision that we aren’t going to let others determine our happiness. If we decide to be happy then we will be happy. It’s really that simple.

Instead of looking for items or people to fill you with joy and contentment look inside yourself. Even if there is something that you feel you need to change about yourself you can still be happy while your making the change. We have the spirit of joy and contentment in us already we just have to decide to make use it. Make the decision that you are going to enjoy life right now no matter what the circumstances are. Make the decision that you are going to be happy and content. And make the decision that nobody and no situation is going to steal your joy from you again. We can be as happy or as unhappy as we want to be, the decision is ours.