Be sure to hunt for happiness the right places

By Bill Fox/Columnist

Recently, dentist Walter Palmer went hunting. I presume hunting made him happy. So shooting the famous lion, Cecil, I assume, at the time, made him very happy. But I don’t think he is happy today! Was he, perhaps, hunting for happiness in the wrong places?

Last week, I watched Hector’s Search for Happiness, about another doctor hunting for happiness. Hector was a psychiatrist who became tired of his humdrum life. Feeling like a fraud, he was offering advice to patients to try to bring them happiness, while he himself was not happy. So Hector embarked on a global quest in hopes of uncovering the elusive secret formula for true happiness. Throughout all of his adventures, he comes to many conclusions, some of which are:

– Making comparisons can spoil your happiness

– Happiness is being with the people you love; unhappiness is being separated from the people you love

– Happiness is doing a job you love

– Happiness is feeling useful to others

– Happiness is caring about the happiness of those you love

– Happiness is not attaching too much importance to what other people think

– Happiness is a certain way of seeing things

– Happiness means making sure that those around you are happy

– Many people think happiness comes from having more power or more money

It says in the Bible that, “It is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven.”

I always imagined that this meant it was almost impossible for rich people to get into heaven, until I went to the Holy Land years ago. One of the entrances into the old city of Jerusalem was called the Eye of the Needle. It was possible for someone to walk through this entrance, but a camel would have to get on its knees in order to get through that opening. So it seems the lesson here is that it takes considerably more effort for rich people to get into heaven.

Many years ago, I came across this saying: “Money won’t buy you happiness, but if you have enough, you can rent it!” I think this is so true.

I have gone on some wonderful holidays away from home that cost considerable money; but sometimes at the end of some of these trips, I was happy to be heading for home again.

I found a these quotes about happiness:

– “It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes us happy.”
– From Dale Carnegie: “It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.”
– “We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.” – Frederick Keonig

– “In getting married, the goal is to make your partner happy, not to have them make you happy!”- Father Tom McKillop, perhaps explaining why some people divorce today?
When we come to the end of our lives on Earth, we will take no material things with us. The only things we may take are the things we have given away. If we have helped others, we may take that with us. If we have given of our time and money for the good of others, we may take that with us. Looking back over our lives, what will you be proud of?

I don’t think we will be proud of what we had gained for ourselves materially, but what good deeds we had done. Those are the things that really matter in the long run. What will you take with you when you go?

Finally this old Eskimo proverb: “Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.”

I will be happy to take your comments at bdeefox@hotmail.com.