March 30, 2010 | 11:44 pm

Choosing Happiness

Posted by Misha Henckel

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As Americans we are quite ingrained with the notion of the pursuit of Happiness. It is part of our cultural DNA.  And why ever not? After all, it is enshrined in our Declaration of Independence as an unalienable right. And so, as good upstanding citizens, we spend most of our lives in said pursuit of Happiness. Until one fine day, when, if we’re lucky, we finally wake up to the realization that if Happiness is pursued, it only eludes us - somehow keeping just ahead, always beyond our fingertips, barely, but perpetually, out of reach. If we’re lucky, we wake up… We wake up, and we find out that Happiness is as simple as a choice. And it is simply a choice.  One can choose Happiness or not. Our circumstances do not create the Happiness, we do.

A dear friend of mine recently made the Happiness choice, and once she did, an entire realm of possibilities, ones that she had never before seen, opened up for her. Those possibilities were always there, but she could not see them until she chose to experience her life differently. She’s now awakened to the understanding that her life is what she chooses it to be, in the smallest of ways…, and in the biggest of ways.

We can have Happiness (and Peace, Joy, Love, and Fulfillment) not by chasing after it, nor by denying its possibility. We can have Happiness when we are ready to choose it. And that is our unalienable right.

Misha works with a select group of clients and leads seminars and workshops in the Los Angeles area. She can be reached via email at misha@mishahenckel.com.