Happiness is More Easily Obtained Than the Advertisers Would Have Us Believe

"If we are fools enough to remain at the mercy of the companies who want to sell us happiness, it will be impossible for us ever to be content with anything. How would they profit if we became content? We would no longer need their new product. The last thing the salesman wants is for the buyer to become content. You are of no use in our affluent society unless you are always just about to grasp what you never have. Why can we not be content with an ordinary, secret, personal happiness that does not need to be explained or justified? We feel guilty if we are not happy in some publicly approved way, if we do not imagine that we are meeting some standard of happiness that is recognized by all. God gives us the gift and the capacity to make our own happiness out of our own situation. And it is not hard to be happy, simply by accepting what is within reach, and making of it what we can."

Thomas Merton
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Photo: Beautiful wind-carved ice on Dream Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO

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