Happiness

The dictionary states that the word Happy means - enjoying or expressing pleasure and contentment.

What makes us "Happy"?  Everyone is different in regards to happiness. 
Things that make us happy: life, love, family, friends, sunrise, sunset, money, food, pets and the list could go on and on!  "Being happy has to come from within and you certainly can't rely on someone else for your own happiness".  This was a statement made to me by my sister, Cindy, the other day and it got me thinking.

Happiness to me is giving.  Giving to others and to see their eyes light up, but does that not create happiness for them?  If so is this not relying on someone for happiness?  I think what Cindy was trying to tell me is that our own internal happiness can't come from an external place, which also goes back to the dictionary definition of happy as "enjoying or expressing pleasure and contentment".  I believe that before we can find that happiness in giving to others we have to be content with the person we are.

So in saying that, I think there are two kinds of happiness.  That internal happiness with your life, which goes right to your soul, and then the external things that make each moment of your life happy.

There is a wall hanging in my sisters house (which I gave her!) that says:

Happiness is not so much in having as sharing,
We make a living by what we get,
We make a life by what we give.

So my wish for everyone this Christmas is that you will all find pleasure and contentment in your own lives so that you too will find happiness in giving.