This is a question I\u2019ve asked myself many times, especially when thinking about my sister\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
She faced not just one, but three different cancers. She had to transform everything\u2014her body, her lifestyle, even her blood type changed. She lived in different places depending on where she was receiving treatment, often separated from her children, not knowing when she\u2019d be able to hold them again.<\/p>\n
And yet, she was happy.<\/p>\n
Not because her life was easy\u2014in fact, it was deeply painful\u2014but because she chose to be happy.<\/p>\n
She was grateful for every sunrise, every chance to breathe, every moment with the people she loved.<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t see herself as a victim; she was the protagonist of her story.<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t let complaints take up the space that gratitude could fill.<\/p>\n
Happiness doesn\u2019t always depend on circumstances. It often depends on our attitude toward them.<\/p>\n
Complaining reinforces everything negative in our lives; gratitude opens space to see what is working, what we do have, what is still possible.<\/p>\n
As Viktor Frankl, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, wrote:<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms\u2014to choose one\u2019s attitude in any given set of circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n
We can\u2019t control everything that happens to us, but we can decide who we will be in the face of what happens.<\/p>\n
Happiness, to a large extent, is that choice.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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