Daily Gratitude: “Your happiness depends on three things, all of which are within your power: your will, your ideas concerning the events in which you are involved, and the use you make of your ideas.”

This is a simple sentence describing a what it takes to have a successful life.

Your will is what will keep you going on a path that means the most to you. It will make you stronger because you won’t give up when things seem to he going poorly or maybe not even going at all. Once you have a desire, there isn’t much that can stand in your way if you employ your will.

Your ideas are kind of what makes you tick day after day. But the key part of the sentence is that it’s your ideas about events that are within your control. Having ideas about the weather or politics are not with spending time on and ideas about those things do nothing except make you angry, worried or upset. That accomplishes nothing.

What about “the use you make of your ideas”? Ideas about things that are in your control are exciting. Why? Because they are ideas that you can execute and through that execution , you can achieve your goals. Just that prospect alone can re-energize you.

You Have to take action. It does no one any good to sit around with fantastic ideas if nothing is done with them. Figure out how to put those ideas into motion and your happiness is sure to come to you. I will add that this applies to ideas that will serve other people. That’s the fastest way to happiness. Something may serve you but in order for it to be really powerful it needs to serve others in some way too.