You can now become your own Happiness Doctor. Your decision to be happy is negatively affected by obstacles and controlled by your choice.

You must make the decision to be happy now. The moment you make a decision, you create power with it. Your life is too important to be left to mere chance. By making this decision you change from passive to powerful, and this really gives you the ability to carry out your decision. Anthony Robbins puts it well: "It's in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped."

Let's start off with your decision to be happy, you now have 100% happiness. If you don't start off with happiness, you're never going to find happiness. Happiness is an inside job. Everyone can be happy right now, even with your problems.

Let's say you are 100% happy now. Very soon an OBSTACLE in life is presented to you. It will overcome you if handled in the wrong way. The obstacle however can be overcome, if handled the right way. The first step is to understand that life is presenting something to you that you are seeing as an obstacle. The second part of the formula is; Decision - (minus) the Obstacle. You have to deduct the obstacle from the 100% happiness you had.

Let's say that having everything in your life going well represents 0 on the obstacle scale, and having a very big problem represents 100 on the obstacle scale. Than if you have a flat tire, and it represents 50 on your obstacle scale, you have deducted 50 from the 100% happiness you had and you are left with only 50%. Once you are under 51% you have given up controlling interest in managing your life. Unhappiness is lack of control. Happiness is being in control.

Do you treat a problem as a sledgehammer or a feather? A sledgehammer may represent a 90 on the scale, while a feather may only represent a 10 . On a scale of 0 - 100, you are better off hitting yourself with the feather than with the sledgehammer. You have to find a way to reduce the problem in your mind with the right choice so you do not hurt yourself. The feather allows you to be light on yourself and more accepting of things, allowing you to change them the best way you know how.

What happens when you have an obstacle? You run up against an obstacle and you lose your happiness. You think that the obstacle you are facing is exactly what will take your happiness away. Why make the obstacle more than it is? Why relinquish your power to it. Why not accept it as just something that can happen to anyone, this time around it happened to you. It is what you can do about it that really matters.

Now, what do we do about it? The last part is Obstacle + (plus) Choice. What choice you make will determine how much happiness and power you will have. Your choice, not your problem will determine how happy you will be.

You can even make a choice to live with a problem you cannot change. This immediately raises your acceptance of the problem and gives you back the happiness you were losing. You are back in control again and balancing the scales back in your favor. When you think more about the problem than you think about the solution, you lose all control. You get wrapped up in the problem and lose your happiness. You can control the obstacles in your life, by making the best choices.

Happiness = Decision - Obstacle + Choice. The "DOC Happiness Formula."

You must have the intention, the decision to be happy. You must handle the obstacles that come your way by making the best choices you can. You must want happiness even more than you want to get rid of the problem.

You can think of the happiness formula with Decision as the highway, and Obstacles might be the weather, traffic and construction delays or accidents. Consider Choice to be your steering wheel. As long as you stay on the highway and have taken hold of the steering wheel, you have the ultimate control over your destiny. The obstacles along the way increase your driving proficiency, and make you a better driver. By taking control, you are able to see that what other people call problems are really just life's little bumps in the road.

 Two thousand years ago during the years 55-135 AD, a Greek slave named Epictetus became a philosopher. He said these profound words: "There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will." Why does it take mankind so long to learn that happiness is in our control? I don't have the answer to that question, but I do have the Formula for Happiness.

Being happy will sustain you for the rest of your life. Without the decision to be happy, you will never be happy. With the decision to be happy, any obstacles you encounter will only make you more determined. Happiness is power because of the control you have over yourself. Happiness allows you to make the best choice for each obstacle you encounter. You have the power to make your life the best it can be. Use this power. CHOICE is your God-given right. Choose wisely, choose well, and by all means, always choose happiness.

The next time someone tells you they can't be happy, show them the DOC Happiness Formula and tell them to…do the math!

Lionel Ketchian is the founder of the Happiness Club. He can be reached at PrintLRK@aol.com. The Web site is www.HappinessClub.com


Originally published in the Fairfield Citizen-News on February 27, 2002