Somebody sang a beautiful song;
Somebody smiled the whole day long.
Somebody thought, ‘’Tis sweet to live’;
Somebody said ‘I’m glad to give’;
Somebody fought a valiant fight;
Somebody lived to shield the right;
Was that somebody you?”
“There are,” says Margaret Deland, “as many opinions of happiness as there are people in the world, but the first and most important distinction which we must make is this: happiness is a spiritual possession and is independent of material things. Happiness is thinking straight and seeing clear and having a true perception of the value of things.”
It takes us a long time to find out that happiness is a state of mind which can be cultivated rather than the result of conditions outside ourselves. The little child does not know that it is seeing its happiest days, the school-girl does not understand how happy she is, the young mother seldom realizes her own happiness; they are all looking forward with eagerness to some happiness to come. Contentment is the truest happiness, and yet if we were always simply content with our lot from babyhood up, where would be the world’s progress? It is the eager reaching forward for something better that brings progress, which, alas! is not always synonymous with happiness.
But it is our duty to cultivate happiness, just the same. We can form the habit of cheerfulness and hopefulness and a courageous spirit which shall become, in time, the very essence of happiness, or at least a very good substitute for it. The woman who goes whining through life, the woman who is envious or self-conscious or unloving may fasten herself into a steel armor of endurance of this life, but she cannot hope to be happy; but the woman who accepts gladly the work close at her hand, and thanks God for it, plants sunshine in her own soul and radiates happiness from the heart.