“Not to long ago, I watched and listened to an irate customer berate a young fast food restaurant clerk. Young minimum wage workers appear to be fair game. The angry man grew red in the face as he yelled at the young man.

What was the young man’s sin that deserved this wrath? He gave the man onion rings instead of french fries.

The man was advised to calm down, that he was making a scene.  He cursed the person out.  He did quieted down only after he saw the looks being given to him by the other customers.

I can’t understand behavior like that.

If you are having a bad day, that’s a shame. Get over it. You are not going to make your day better by ruining the day of another.   

Misery needs to stop loving company.

Our days are not going to be perfect. Find a bless in the mess.

“You might as well be happy, no one cares if you ain’t.” He is the same guy who was fond of saying, “If ignorance is bliss, how come there aren’t more happy people?”

The older I get the more I value time and good folks. The more I want my loved ones to be happy. The more I want to spend my time being happy.

We owe it to those around us to be happy! 

What makes us happy?

Perhaps it is as the cartoonist Charles Schulz said, “Happiness is a warm puppy.”  I do know that my dog is happy. It is easy to make my faithful canine companion happy. All I have to do is to say, while leaving the house, “You can go.” James Thurber observed that, “Dogs are obsessed with being happy.” Dogs need no reason to be happy. That’s because they have every reason to be happy.

We are told that money cannot buy us happiness. The stories in the supermarket tabloids-if only a few are true–have proven that. This is no reason for pessimism. No one will ever be rich enough to be able to afford to be pessimistic.

Good memories make us happy. Memories provide more beginnings than endings.

We gather good memories from our experiences.

We should spend more on experiences and less on things.

Travel produces great experiences and wonderful memories.

We need to seek happiness, not pleasure. Pleasure alone does not bring happiness–as anyone who has ever been on a diet because of an appetite for fattening food can attest.

We need to choose to be happy. We need to find joy in green lights, the antics of chipmunks, rainbows and the smell of sunshine.

Barrow, Alaska is located 330 miles north of the Arctic Circle and is the USA’s northernmost city. It is a place where polar bears roam and the minimum temperature is below freezing for 324 days of the year.

Barrow is a place that when the sun sets on November 18, it does not rise again until January 23. That is a lot of darkness.  4400 people live there. How can they do that–with all that darkness?

Ernie Banks said, “If you aren’t happy in one place, chances are you won’t be happy any place.”

The residents of Barrow survive by remembering that the sun does not set at all between May 10 and August 2. The residents are given 82 days of sunshine. They survive by enjoying the northern lights that dance across their darkened sky. The aurora borealis brightens their world.

We should all rejoice with the light rather than find sorrow in the darkness.

Be happy.   Al Batt”

HERE’S TO YOUR HAPPINESS!  Find Happiness in all the things that you do!

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