True Happiness.

One of my favorite quotes:

"Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude" –Denis Waitley


I love the simplicity and bluntness it achieves. It also was a very helpful quote during my traveling abroad. It kept me focused on my true happiness and not an external happiness that can many times be fleeting. I really asked myself about this trip before I came, “molly? What are your reasons for this?”

When I was a little girl, I was always the first person to friend the new person at school. I remember making a specific effort to go over, introduce myself and ask them to play. I felt a strong duty to make them feel comfortable. Although I was a from the Chicago-land area, my town did not have a lot of diversity, that I desperately sought. So, at the time, when a person who looked different than me came to my class, I was most certainly going to be friends with them. They were always my favorite because they came from a place that I didn’t understand, yet was eager to learn.

I was raised by a woman who talked very openly about the atrocities of racism and prejudice, describing an extremely frightful state of affairs, specifically between black and white. She also described a world with every type of person, every color, every shape and every size. I had black cabbage-patch dolls and barbies, and tons of books to go along with my imagination. She encouraged me to be open-minded to all individuals, even the ones who looked like me who were considered ‘un-cool ‘or ‘un-liked’ by my peers.

My father, traveled for his job when I was little and he would come home with stories about how people ate or went to the bathroom. He brought me books with foreign words. I remember thinking they were impossible to read, how in the world could anyone read these? When he would first arrive home from a foreign place, I remember, he would have an odd smell on him. WOW!!! These places must smell differently, of course, increasing my imagination.

I was just completely consumed with seeing the world. I used to study maps of the world, by myself. Staring for hours at the little islands or places with strange names, wondering what kind of people lived there. Interestingly, I hated my World History class and American History because I always, even before I was old enough to realize it, thought it was a bunch of (no better way to say it) bull-shit. I was determined to find out the truth about these places and the people inhabiting them.

Back to the quote:

"Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude" –Denis Waitley


I realize that there are a lot of people who see what I have done and thought ‘I really want to do that!! My life would be so much better’ but I ask you: What are your reasons for doing it?


In fact, I ask myself the same question when I buy something, earn something, wear something, or eat something. It mentions love, in the second half of the quote as an act you should consistently perform. But when deciding to be with one person, it is also important to be sure of ones true happiness. It is impossible to not feel happiness or better said, gratitude, when these things happen. The same is true, when you find the perfect outfit in a little store, tucked away or you get the job that you always dreamed of, maybe you eat the most delicious meal of your life. These things do not happen every day, when they do, I believe they are to be given gratitude, grace, love and honor as little miracles. They are not what stabilizes happiness. They are more like little joys of life swinging us to from one grape vine to the next.