If money cannot buy happiness and happiness does not come from just one thing, then where does happiness come from? First of all, happiness is not something you find outside of yourself. You cannot go look for happiness and find it somewhere. Nor can you simply just "decide" to be happy regardless of your circumstances. Happiness is more than just a mental state of mind that you can maintain by controlling your focus (although there are some who do believe that). Even though it is true that your thoughts can affect your level of happiness, they are not the only thing that can affect it. True happiness does not come from just one thing, not even just your thoughts. I believe that happiness is a positive state of well-being with many contributing factors. It is something that you grow inside of you.



What are the contributing factors? Amazingly, many of them we do not recognize immediately because our brains are programmed to focus on what will protect us from pain, discomfort, danger and other threats to our survival. We can easily overlook the "grass and flowers" in the field of life because we are too busy checking each area for landmines. We often do not realize how much something means to us until it is gone. Simarly, it is very common for us to be unaware of how much something contributes to our happiness unless it is missing. We often do not realize that the love and support we received from our parents as children including the happy memories, the fun, the birthdays, and everything else that was positive also contributed to our foundational emotional experiences that we are still building on today. But just talk to someone who did not have these things. They have a lot less on which to build in that area, and they usually recognize it.

How can success contribute to our happiness? I had attended a seminar a few years ago that defined the "context of success," and I found it very interesting to notice that the same areas that that were included in the "context of success" were also areas that contribute to our level of happiness. So, success is not just about having a lot of money. Overall success, I learned, is about being successful physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, financially, and in our relationships, our family, and our community. These are also the same areas that many of us take for granted when they are positive. We do not even realize how much they contribute to our happiness in the first place, so it is so easy to mistakenly believe that we will "find happiness" in just the one area where we are deficient. But they all combine together (notice "mental" in the list, so our thoughts are just one area) and all of the areas contribute to our happiness as well.

Another area we cannot overlook besides the mental area is the financial area. Being successful financially does contribute to our overall happiness. But it is just as important to understand that it is an area that does contribute to our happiness as it is to understand that it is not the only area that contributes to it. It is one factor in a group of many contributing factors. You cannot ignore it if you want to find the greatest level of happiness for you, but you cannot completely focus on it and neglect all of the other areas either. The key to this is balance. You do not want to be an Alex Haley who, according to the movie "Roots," was obsessed with finding the history of his ancestors but lost his current family in the process. You also do not want to live your life thinking that financial success has no affect on your happiness because you think your happiness comes only from more meaningful things like your family. Why sell yourself short? Grow your happiness from all of these areas. Pursue financial success and see how it can contribute to your happiness as well. You may find yourself experiencing a greater level of happiness than you ever thought was possible.