Hello again, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another episode of Freedom's Creed. Today is Thursday, November the tenth, twenty twenty. I've enjoyed the week thus far, and I certainly hope that you have as well. I would like to start off the program today by acknowledging that tomorrow is Veterans Day. Veterans Day has a special place in my heart, and I hope it does for you as well, and I hope that you're able to acknowledge and remember all of those who have sacrificed their lives in many cases to defend and honor the freedom of the Constitution and the liberty that we enjoy in our country. I would also ask you to remember those veterans who are struggling with mental health issues, particularly PTSD and even suicidal thoughts, keep them in your prayers. If you know a veteran who is struggling with this kind of mental health issue or PTSD, then reach out. Help them, find a way for them to get the help that they need so they can get back on the right track in their lives. And if you happen to be a veteran and you're unsure who to contact or who to reach out to, please feel free to reach out to me. I'm a veteran as well. My email is R-E-X E-R-E-E-D at gmail.com. The bottom line here, ladies and gentlemen, is that veterans were willing to lay it all on the line for us. The least we can do is support them in any way we possibly can, and I thank you for that. Okay, so today I am talking about happiness, and we're going to see if we can actually define happiness. Well, we know we can do that, but we want to try to determine how we get this elusive happiness, how do we maintain it in our lives on a day-to-day, week to week, month to month, year-to-year basis. I know, I know, you all are probably talking about the fact that we just finished some midterm elections, and maybe you're happy about that, maybe you're not so happy about that, but I don't care about that right now because I want to talk about what it means to be happy. And what can we do to be happy in our lives? That's what I want to talk about. As promised, here is one definition of happiness. It's one that I like, I think, the most of all the definitions that I did find. And that is happiness is a state of well-being and contentment. So, again, there's a lot of different definitions of the word happy or happiness, but that's the one I want to focus on. A state of well-being and contentment. I'll be asking some questions as I go throughout the podcast, and what I'd like you to do is, if you need to, stop the podcast and really ponder and think about these questions, how they apply to you personally, and what you can perhaps do to create more happiness in your own personal life. And here's the first question that I would ask, and that is, is our happiness dependent on something else? In other words, if we are looking for an outside source, whatever that may be, to be happy, then likely we'll be in a state of always looking for something else. I've heard it said that we can be happy under any or every circumstance. I would certainly characterize that as something that is the ideal. It's not perfection necessarily, but it's certainly a very high ideal and in fact a very lofty goal. And you may be thinking that such a goal like that is impossible. Well, is it? The way that I would answer a question like that is I would ask myself, how do I first gain and then maintain a long-term happiness? Now, it's going to be different for every other person, I'm sure, but for a lot of people, myself included, I would say it is my faith. The bedrock of my faith is that there is something better beyond this mortal experience. And that is what keeps me motivated during challenging times. Now, for you, it may be something totally different, and that is fine. I don't think it really matters what it is that you choose to have as sort of the bedrock or the foundation of your happiness. The most important thing is that it's something that you can rely on and depend on and have as your foundation going forward so that no matter what happens in your life, you have that foundation of happiness and you come back to that, and it helps you to deal with the challenges and the trials that you have. Because let's face it, we all have trials, we all have challenges in our life. The bottom line here, and what I'm trying to say is that whatever works for you, you find what works for you. And ultimately you owe it to yourself to find out, to determine what it is that helps you to be happy and helps you to stay on that even keel when it comes to being happy. Because I will admit, it's certainly a lot easier to talk about happiness and to talk about how we should be happy. But it's quite another thing when those stresses and challenges and trials come into our life. How do we respond to that? How do we maintain some measure of happiness and keep a broad perspective about really the purpose of why we're walking on this planet to begin with? Ultimately, ladies and gentlemen, if we have our wits about us and we are competent, then we are the ones who are responsible for our own happiness, whether that's a short-term, long-term, or otherwise, we are the ones who get to choose whether we're going to be happy or not. And so what sort of conditions do we set for gaining that happiness? That's a question I would ask. Do we put conditions on our happiness? Those are important things to think about. Now, of course, I am talking about adults, because six-year-olds don't often really know what makes them happy. They just know that if they can play and have a place to eat and a place to sleep and be loved and be cherished, then they're pretty happy. If we as adults could be more childlike, in other words, look at life and enjoy life and not look at all of these other conditional things that we put upon ourselves because we think that those are the things that are going to be able to give us happiness or make us happy. So in other words, do we say that if I have the ideal career, then I'll be happy, or if I find the right spouse, then I'll be happy. Or if I become a millionaire, then I'll definitely be happy. Or what about if I lived in a better neighborhood, uh just had better neighbors, then I would definitely, definitely be happy. Or if I had a really amazing home, then I'll be happy. And well, the list goes on and on. You may be thinking, well, yeah, Rex, those sound like a lot of really good things. But then I would ask, what's the danger of connecting our happiness to these things? It's not that any of these things are inherently bad, they're not. In fact, they're really good and we need these things in our lives. But when our happiness is directly connected to these things and many, many more, we all know the bottom line or the answer to this, ladies and gentlemen. When we put too much emphasis on people or things or houses, cars, vacations, careers, all of those things, and I mean all of them, can let us down because ultimate happiness can't be achieved in this way. It's impossible. Now, we may have it for a time. We may briefly have some short-term happiness and we enjoy our lives and everything's going really well, but then ultimately something might happen or will happen, I should say, that causes us to reflect on these things and whether we've put too much emphasis on these things. I mean, we can lose a job, we can lose a career, we can lose a house, we can lose loved ones. It happens. That's the nature of life. Things are in a very temporary state. We've all heard the expression, you can't take it with you. That is true. When we're talking about material things, you can't take them with you. And maybe we don't all have the same definition of taking something with us, wherever that may be. For me, that is what I would refer to as heaven. It's a place where I believe I can go, and I won't be taking my house or a car or anything else with me in terms of material possessions. What I will have is I'll have my wife, my children, my grandchildren, and my extended family as well as friends. I believe I'll have those associations there like I have here. And trust me when I say this, I'd rather have that. I'm not going to miss any material possession that I had in this life. No. What I'll miss if I'm not able to be with a family member or a friend, that that's what I'm going to miss. I'll miss that more than anything. And in fact, thinking about that actual event or that place brings a little bit of sadness to me if I think that I may not be able to be with the people that I love uh in that realm. For you, ladies and gentlemen, it may be something different. Maybe you have a different uh idea or conception of whatever you would call life after this life. And that's fine. I think that that's perfectly fine. I think whatever it is that helps bring you happiness is the point that I'm trying to make. We should have something that we can be anchored to in this life, something that keeps us grounded, whether that's religion, meditation, prayer, family, wordle, bingo. Wait a minute. No, not wordle or bingo. Although I will say that my paternal grandmother did work on crossword puzzles in her late eighties and into her nineties, and she lived to be, I want to say, ninety-three or ninety-four years old. So perhaps there was some measure of happiness that she received from doing those crosswords. In all seriousness, though, ladies and gentlemen, happiness truly is a huge part of our overall contentment in life. If we're always looking to something else, an outside source to be happy, then we'll likely be frustrated and unhappy a lot of the time. And listen, I certainly get it. No one is happy a hundred percent of the time. That's not even remotely possible. But what is possible is to strive to maintain a healthy attitude and approach when it comes to happiness, to realize that it's a choice we get to make every single day of our lives. We can choose to be happy. And in a country like ours, where liberty and freedom are granted to each of us because of the Constitution and the Declaration, we can choose to be happy and then do those things that will promote the best happiness for us in our lives. It's really no more difficult than that. And I don't want to necessarily simplify something that can be very discouraging sometimes for people who are having a difficult time in their life at this moment. We're talking about overall, in general, is what we're talking about. Things happen. We all have to deal with things in our lives. That's true. And to take that a step further, what about the challenges that we have no idea about that may happen to us in our lives? And because of these unknown trials that we have no idea about right now, to me, that's why it makes sense to anchor yourself to something that can supply much needed happiness and enduring happiness when these challenging times come into our lives, and they will. We have to be anchored in some way to something that will help us to deal with tragedy, with loss, with suffering. It's the nature of life. I can't imagine going through life and not having a foundation of faith and trust in God, particularly during those times of real challenge and real trial in my life. And again, especially during those times that I don't even know are around the corner. And it's certainly true. I'm I'm not looking for those things. I'm not trying to go out of my way to look for them. We don't have to do that in life. Those things have a way of manifesting themselves, and they come up on us, and we just have to be ready because we never know. But certainly in my going out of my way and looking for any of those things, because they'll find us. They'll find all of us. We just have to find a way to deal with them and to try to be as happy as we possibly can while we're going through those things. And like I said, the ideal in happiness may not always be that 100% happy, because most of us may never reach that. What we do strive to have or to achieve is that state of happiness that provides the contentment in our life that helps us to be productive and useful to one another and ultimately happy. Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is a super short episode, but I wanted to share with you some thoughts that I have about happiness and the importance of happiness, and certainly being able to seek for happiness and to be happy, irrespective of the circumstances that we might find ourselves. And that is the most challenging thing, I think, in order to be happy, is to actively choose to be happy no matter what circumstance we're faced with. So I have a couple of short quotes to end the episode with today. One is from Abraham Lincoln, who said, quote, most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. And whether we're talking about the laws of the land, the laws of God, it is important for us to realize that we'll be much happier when we keep the law. It's when we lose that freedom and liberty that we then lose happiness. So, ladies and gentlemen, make it a great rest of the week. And remember, if you can think it, you can plan it. If you can plan it, you can do it.