Anonymous Distributor

Harvey Mackay believes our happiness comes from making other people happy. “Successful people, as well as successful businesses, take great joy in finding ways to spread happiness. Why is Disneyland the ‘happiest place on earth’? Is it any wonder that one of the biggest songs of 2014 was Pharrell Williams’ ‘Happy’? How many happy meals does McDonald’s sell in a year? Have you ever attended a happy hour at your favorite watering hole?

“Businesses that are clued in to what customers want, find ways to incorporate ‘happy’ into the sale. A new car doesn’t drive any better because the dealership was decked out in balloons and offered free hot dogs. But a happy experience beats an ordinary one most days.

“Even our nation’s Declaration of Independence places a premium on happiness, stating that we are ‘bestowed with certain unalienable rights, which among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.’ Thomas Jefferson and company left it up to us to figure out how to pursue happiness, but I have some thoughts for you. Use them regularly and you will see wonderful results.

“1) Don’t let little things bother you. 2) Keep your perspective. 3) Only worry about what you can control. 4) Do your best, but understand that you can’t always be a perfectionist. 5) When you are right, be gracious. When wrong, be even more gracious. 6) Don’t compare yourself to others, which is a guarantee of instant misery. People are different for many reasons. 7) Brush away the chip on your shoulder so that when something happens to you that you don’t like, you can take the high road. 8) Give of yourself wholeheartedly or enthusiastically. When you have nothing left to give, someone will return the favor. 9) Make happiness the aim of your life instead of bracing for life’s barbs.

“Remember, you are responsible for your own happiness.”

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Once upon a time, a daughter complained to her father that her life was miserable and that she didn’t know how she was going to make it. She was tired of fighting and struggling all the time. It seemed just as one problem was solved, another one soon followed. Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high flame.

Once the three pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in one pot, eggs in the second pot and ground coffee beans in the third pot. He then let them sit and boil, without saying a word to his daughter. The daughter, moaned and impatiently waited, wondering what he was doing. After 20 minutes, he turned off the burners. He took the potatoes out of the pot and placed them in a bowl. He pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. He then ladled the coffee out and placed it in a cup.

Turning to her, he asked, “Daughter, what do you see?”

“Potatoes, eggs and coffee,” she hastily replied.

“Look closer,” he said, “and touch the potatoes.” She did and noted that they were soft.

He then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg.

Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. Its rich aroma brought a smile to her face.

“Father, what does this mean?” she asked.

He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and the coffee beans had each faced the same adversity — the boiling water. However, each one reacted differently.

The potato went in strong, hard and unrelenting, but in boiling water, it became soft and weak.

The egg was fragile, with the thin outer shell protecting its liquid interior until it was put in the boiling water. Then, the inside of the egg became hard.

However, the ground coffee beans were unique. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed the water and created something new.

“Which one are you?” he asked his daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean?”

The moral: In life, things happen around us, things happen to us, but the only thing that truly matters is how you choose to react to it and what you make out of it. Life is all about learning from, adopting, and converting all the struggles that we experience into something positive.

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