What makes a person happy?

There are perhaps as many answers to that question as there are people reading this article.

To discover what makes a person happy, you just have to watch and listen for a while. For some, it is easy to identify. For others it seems as if nothing pleases them.

There is a funny story about an optimistic farmer who couldn’t wait to greet each new day wit a resounding, "Good morning, God!" He lived near a woman whose morning greeting was more like, "Good God...morning?"

Where he saw opportunity, she saw problems. Where he was satisfied, she was discontented.

One bright morning he exclaimed, "Look at the beautiful sky! Did you see that glorious sunrise?"

"Yeah," she encountered. "It’ll probably get so hot the crops will scorch!"

During an afternoon shower, he commented, "Isn’t this wonderful? Mother Nature is giving the corn a drink today!"

"And if it doesn’t stop before too long," came the sour reply, "we’ll wish we’d taken out flood insurance on the crops!"

Convinced that he could instill some awe and wonder in her hardened attitude, he bought a remarkable dog. Not just any mutt, but the most expensive, highly-trained and gifted dog he could find. The animal was exquisite! It could perform remarkable and impossible feats which, the farmer thought, would surely amaze even his neighbour. So he invited her to watch his dog perform.

"Fetch!" he commanded, as he tossed a stick out into a lake where it bobbed up and down in the rippling water. The dog bounded after the stick, walked ON the water, and retrieved it.

"What do you think of that?" he asked, smiling.

"Hmmm," she frowned. "Can’t swim, can he?"

Do you anyone like the lady in the story? Doesn’t it just take all the fun out of life when you are around people who have such a negative attitude that they find fault with just about everything around them?

Then you have people like the bus driver from Chicago. He actually sings while he drives, and not just softly, but loud enough for everyone on the bus to hear. He sings all day long while he drives.

He was once interviewed on a Chicago television station and said that he was not actually a bus driver.

"I’m a professional singer," he claimed. "I only drive the bus to get a captive audience."

His happiness is not driving a bus. His real joy in life is singing. People actually line up to ride on his bus. They even let other busses pass by so they can ride with the "singing bus driver". They love it! For him, his purpose on this earth is to make other people happy through his singing. The more he sings, the more he makes people happy. He is living the kind of life he believes he was meant to live and he is doing so by combining his purpose in living with his occupation.

We can’t always be happy. There are plenty of times when our mood may not be the greatest, but isn’t life much more enjoyable when we manage to shake off our troubles and cares and just savour everything that is good in our life. When you become the kind of person who has a positive attitude towards life, you attract friends and acquaintances. Everyone looks forward to being with you and talking to you because you help them enjoy their own experiences. And when you have a positive outlook on life, it seems as if the people around you develop the same kind of positive attitude. It is contagious and is far more desirable than being negative.