Are You Happy?

“You have one job, to lead an extraordinary life.”  I’ve seen this quote attributed to a number of people, I’ve also seen it in several different forms so I’m not quite sure who to appropriately attribute it to, but I love it.  It’s my philosophy of life.

Now I’ve had plenty of people, when I bring this idea up, that start immediately writing it off and pointing out that without kids, or a wife I am more free than they are, so I can think this way and they can’t.  They my friends, are wrong, I consider it a lack of imagination.  I know what I’m talking about, I’ve seen it.  What is it?  Well in my journeys and on my adventures I’ve seen every type of human in every relational configuration out doing the same things I have done.  You see we all have responsibilities, we all have limitations but the limit that holds us back to the most is our own brain.  Whether it is buying into society’s script or our own limited imaginations, we are in control of our lives. We decide what we can achieve and how happy we can be.

The Eagles said it best, from Already Gone, “so often times it happens, we live our lives in chains, and we never even know we have the key.”

I didn’t always know this my friends, I wasn’t born with this insight, nor was I always as happy as I am today.  It took a long time to learn this idea, not intellectually but in my heart, it took time to internalize the concept.  I had to have to experience to truly believe that the more I stretched myself, the more adventures I went on, the more I followed my own script,  the happier I became.  So be yourself, love yourself, stretch yourself, take the road less followed and you might just find more happiness.  So tonight’s main point, a simple question.

Are you happy my friends?  No, not that quick nod, stop for a minute, sit back in your chair and really think about it, are you really happy?  If not, what would make you happy, if you are, what would make you even happier?  That’s the goal, those things, whatever they are, are the items for your bucket list.  But not for off in some distant future,  soon for those items that need planning and resources, NOW for the easy ones.  Even if it seems a little crazy, bring your kids, bring your parents, be a little crazy as the old commercial used to say, try it, you’ll like it.  You might just find a smile you haven’t seen in a while, you might become a bit happier than you are right now, you might even change your life and have many happy days my friends ~ Rev Kane

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