Choose To Be Happy/Choose To Be Grateful

We spend our days feeling like we are always dogged by troubles.
People today are unemployed ,loosing homes,just scraping by.
Issues happen to us everyday with feelings of no recovery in sight.
Many young people do not understand that this is not something that just happens to them,but has been going on for many years through out history.
Back in the Jimmy Carter days,when I was a young adult I went through exactly what is going on in the world today.
No jobs,no gas,and food prices beyond what one could comfortably spend.
All in all this to will pass,just as the great depression did in the 1920's.
Money like jobs,are fleeting but family and friends,hopefully are not.
What to do?Start by understanding that you are as happy and grateful as you choose to be.
You can not change everything in the world around you,but you can change how you handle what is given to you.
Today you need to realize that no matter how bad things are,know many people out there have it much worse then you.
Today start a journal,every night write in what made you happy and why you are grateful.
Understand that bad things happen to everyone,everyday,but that does not make you a bad person or a failure.
Sometimes bad things happen for good reasons,we learn lessons and understand what in our lives are important.
Its not the car,the money or the McMansion that makes us who we are,its the peerson  who comes out the other side with an altered new attitude of just how important we are in this world and how we can encourage and pass on our new perspectives to others.