Do you want to be happy? What conditions will have to be met in order for you to be happy? Will it happen when you are free from debt or when you have more money? Will it happen when you reach a specific goal or change your career? Will it happen when you finally meet someone special? Write down everything that you believe will make you happy. Maybe it's a long list. When you finish, read it carefully, and then throw it away. If you have a fireplace, burn it.

The list of things that will make you happy is actually a list of barriers to your happiness. All of these things are preventing you from being happy. Why? Because when you say, "I'll be happy when..." you are placing your happiness in the future, where it will never arrive. Even if you do achieve something on your list, there will be other items on your list that will increase in importance, and you still won't be happy until you have those, and by then you will have added even more conditions to your growing list. It's a vicious cycle that leaves you forever anticipating happiness, but never actually attaining it.

Life lived for tomorrow will always be just a day away from being realized.
—Leo Buscaglia

So how can you be happy? By deciding that you are happy right now, in this moment. It is a choice, and it requires that you not place any conditions on your happiness. It requires that you shift your thinking so that you focus on what you already have, instead of what you do not have. When you can be grateful for what you have and where you are today, you can be happy.

It is only possible to live happily-ever-after on a day-to-day basis.
—Margaret Bonnano

Of course, there is nothing wrong with wanting to achieve goals, create wealth, attract a partner, or anything else on your list. You can manifest anything you desire. But when you make these things conditions for your happiness, you make them harder to achieve because you are focusing on not having them and the anxiety and unhappiness that this causes you. On the other hand, if you are grateful and happy today, you will attract more good things into your life, because your thoughts are focused on the abundance you already have. Focusing on lack creates more lack; focusing on gratitude for all that you have creates more of the good stuff.

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That's why we call it the present. 
—Babatunde Olatunji

All we ever have is the present moment. Tomorrow does not yet exist, and when it comes, who knows what it will bring? You may be granted the time to complete your list of requirements—or you may not. What will you have done with your time? Will you spend it hoping to be happy one day? Or will you embrace the happiness that is available to you right now?

We are always getting ready to live but never living.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Making the decision to be happy today will change your life, even if you don't feel happy at first. Shifting your consciousness doesn't happen in five seconds. It's a process that happens over time. Be patient with the process and with yourself. Once you've made the decision to be happy, you will need to make choices that will support your decision. Meditation and affirmations can help you shift your thinking. Identify the things that don't make you happy today so that you can work on removing them from your life. Counseling, energy healing, life coaching, or other healing methodologies can assist you. And in some cases, your body chemistry may need a jumpstart with anti-depression medication so that you can get out of a depressive cycle. (If you suspect that is the case, please see your doctor.)

As you shift your thoughts and support your commitment to happiness with your choices, you will find happiness today. You can discover the power of the present moment and the joy of living in it, instead of in the past or the future. What will you choose today?

It's not what if, it's what now.
—Author unknown

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