Happiness is not an outside thing, it’s an inside thing.

Happiness is a choice we make regardless of our circumstances.

Whilst I sat in our car as my partner got fuel I looked up at the variety of beautiful trees opposite and their fantastic equally varied foliage flowing in the wind and I felt very relaxed and grateful. So grateful it was a trigger for me to say thank you for all the things I could think of in that moment I was grateful for.

My eyesight to see this beautiful seen and appreciate the gorgeous summers day, thank you health, thank you mobility, thank you car for enabling us to travel through beautiful countryside and picturesque towns and villages, thank you for all the beautiful people in my life and who I come into contact with and on and on and on.

Shorty after my partner got back in the car. He’s a self employed skilled trades made and had to contact a friend that he was currently helping to renovate his home to say he wouldn’t be able to make it to their house today (Saturday) and how frustrated he knew he’d be.

My partner said he would try to make it today (Saturday) after giving him a day during the working week because he got so demanding that he needed him there like, yesterday to do this job and as it was my partner was unable to do anything on arrival because another trade that was required before my partner could do his work had not completed their work so wasted journey wasted day and as it was my partner was going to try to go at the weekend but he had to complete the job he had to put on hold for his demanding friend and couldn’t see himself achieving both.

My partner began to relay how his ‘friend’ was really annoyed because he needed his toilet downstairs working.

I inquired ‘does he have another toilet?’ And he replied ‘Yes, two but he’s fed up of having to keep walking upstairs!’ – “Seriously?” I replied .

My partner continued to tell me varying tales of his attitude towards people working for him or helping him, including very close relatives. Very rude, ungrateful attitude.

I expressed my personal feeling that this person seems to have lost touch with reality and could do with getting some perspective. He is currently renovating a very large house (with three toilets) yet all he seems to be doing is focusing on the negative and moaning. He has a lot in my eyes, more than most and yet by focusing on all the negatives, what good is it doing him.

We are not wealthy in some ways (obviously I need to work on that area) but I remind myself when I think about our kitchen that is falling apart and our partly completed renovated house (with one toilet, upstairs. Maybe that’s why I am so mobile? So I am grateful I have an upstairs toilet) that I am very lucky. I have a roof over my head. Hot and cold running water. An incredible shower (in our completed bathroom, well I am lucky enough to live with a skilled tradesman in that arena).

(And by the way I seem to like brackets today) so thank you to brackets.

I live in a country that allows me as a women equal freedom to do whatever I choose (including drive, still banned for some women in certain countries along with many other things I could take for granted). I won’t be stoned for marrying a man I love or have acid thrown in my face for dishonouring my family, or be genitally mutilated as a teenager and I have the freedom to write all of the above without being beaten or raped.

As we drove home we passed through a town busy with shoppers and I spotted a young man living in a doorway. He’d be grateful for one toilet. Later after my partner went out to complete his work I took out our gorgeous car (that I have manifested which I envisioned many years ago and my colleagues mocked when I discussed the book I was reading and what is suggested to do. Such as manifest a car, well I am driving in it now baby)

I have been listening to a Jim Rohn video on the YouTube app on my mobile phone whilst commuting, something else I am grateful for. Free use of the internet and social media to access motivational material to grow my mind and in this video Jim says “Work harder of yourself than you do at your job”

The (car) job I was in was the first job I had after many years of bringing up three children. It manifested the day after I thought ‘I could get a job now.’

It wasn’t the greatest job, peeling potatoes and onions in a freezing cold environment. When I thought I would like to move on from that job to a more emotionally sound situation another job manifested. Ten years later as if by accident I have gone from peeling potatoes to very well educated in many skills and in my third managerial role.

I haven’t manifested all my dreams yet but I must have been working ok on myself with all the books etc I have read and listened too.

I digressed but what I was going to say was whilst out driving I came to a junction and waiting for a gap in the traffic I saw a man sat in a wheelchair whilst next to him was, probably his son painting a garage door and I thought after many years working within the care industry (after peeling potatoes) ‘I bet this man would like to go to the toilet with dignity and without the aid of equipment and possibly the help of another human being and our ‘friend’ feels hard done by because he has to walk upstairs to his two other toilets.

He has a gorgeous house etc etc and he his moody with a bad attitude to others and the man I gave ten pounds to in a door way the other evening who was a gift to meet and told me he was so happy because in two weeks he was moving in to his own place that he found after ten weeks living on the streets because after having to leave his last property he couldn’t find a landlord that would accept his beloved dog until now. He was the happiest person I’d met in a long time.

Proving you don’t have to be rich to be happy, proving you don’t have to have a lot to be happy and proving having a lot won’t make you happy.

It’s an inside job and it’s a choice.

There is always something to be grateful for in any given situation.