Happiness...

Abraham Lincoln said "Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be."




A few years ago I read the novel "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolsty. One of his characters was Levin. Levin was written is as Tolstoy. I also read Tolstoy's Biography. Tolstoy was an unhappy person, he was always looking for happiness where he wasn't . For example, he was a count, and he thought that the peasants were happier than he was, so he would go out a be with the peasants, but that didn't make him happy, so he would go back and be a count, but was still unhappy.

In the book "Anna Karenina", he has Levin sitting on the bank of a lake looking at some people out in a boat and thinking to himself that he was not happy on the bank, but that if he were in the boat with those people, he would be happy. Then he realized that if he were in the boat, he would not be happy and he would wish that he were on the bank. So it went.

Tolstoy was always looking outside him self for happiness. He was always searching for the truth in religion and I am sorry that he never found it, he died a very unhappy man. He had every reason to be happy, he had position, success as an author, a family, and the wife of his choosing, but in the end he died a very lonely and sad man.

I read a quote today on Alexandra Stoddard's web page by "Seeking happiness outside ourselves is like waiting for sunshine in a cave facing north." Tibetan saying