The Choice to be Happy

Perhaps it's not a novel concept, but we are the ones who choose to be happy or miserable. We often equate our happiness with the situations around us. The more we choose to be happier the better our lives will be.
This week I started back to the grind of getting ready to teach. While it's exciting to come back, see the teachers and students again, and exciting to create new ways of doing things, it's also really frustrating. There are a million things to get in place and little time to do them all. There are new reading programs that only have half arrived. There are people who refuse to say one way or another about our budget so we don't know who we can hire. There are changes in schedules so one's plans are all negated, and there are new little surprises that are placed on the teachers shoulders that feel like set backs (this year we all got to clean our own rooms because the janitor had quit). To put it mildly, the stress level for everyone is way over the top.
This week (and the rest of the year) will be stressful. It always has been and it always will be. No doubt there will be some nights of crying on my part because if there weren't it wouldn't truly be teaching. It's hard. It frustrating, and so many things we know we are suppose to do contradict what we feel like what we need to do. We always want to do more, but we also need to have a personal life. We always wonder if we have pushed a kid far enough academically. We always wonder if had taught it another way if we could have made a little more of a difference. I work with some amazing teachers, and they all at some point wonder if they couldn't do just a little more.
With all this stress I've seen two types of reactions. There is the most common reaction which is to give into the negativity and there is the reaction that leads to it's not fair, it's hard, but we'll do our best. The fact is you can get frustrated, but it doesn't have to ruin your day. You can find happiness that is not dependent on your job. In fact, if you are truly happy and not just feeling a momentary pleasure, your happiness does not come at all from your job, spouse, money, house, car, etc. Your happiness is within you. It's the light that shines from the soul. It's the inner peace that everyone seeks for. It doesn't matter if someone shoots you down, or disrespects you. If you seek for that light within you, the world does not influence your happiness.
In his book, "Man's Search for Meaning," Viktor E. Frankl says that even during the holocaust he saw this principle. When everything had been taken away from these people, some would choose to let this light shine. There were some who on their deathbed would give whatever little scrap of food they had to someone else. Those people let their light shine. They had the inner happiness and peace. The happiness wasn't reliant on the place or the situation they were in. It was based on who they were inside.
Let's try not to mask our light. Don't let the disparity of the situation get us to forget the happiness inside. Constantly choose to let your light shine.