“If we always compare ourselves with those in financial brackets above us, we will never feel content.”

A thought by Darren Whitehead and Jon Tyson (2011-07-19) in their book, Rumors of God: Experience the Kind of Faith You´ve Only Heard About (Kindle Locations 523-524). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

Have you ever noticed how dissatisfied you get after watching House Hunters on the HGTV network? Have you ever seen it? A person is dissatisfied with their home or location and they get with a real estate person and look at 3 different houses and then choose which one they want to buy. Of course the homes are always bigger than the one they were living it. And usually the one we are living in and it can cause us to be dissatisfied.

Television is a great pusher of dissatisfaction. Do you realize we live in bigger homes today with smaller families? We don’t need all that room but we want it. It is no wonder we are having economic problems. We want more than we can afford and believe we’re entitled to it. That is a problem.

So what is the answer? Well it seems like the problem is focus. What if we focused on people who don’t have as much as we do, who live in a smaller home than we do? It seems our attitude would change from dissatisfaction to satisfaction, to gratitude. Comparing ourselves with people who don’t have as much as we do instead of those who have more than we do it seems like it might make us a little happier.

I know, that is a little simplistic but really life is not that complicated. You see happiness is a choice. If I base my happiness on having what those who are in financial brackets above us have then I’ll never be happy. There will always be someone above me but if I choose to be satisfied with what I have and thankful for what I have then I can be happy. It is amazing how that works.

So where is your focus? That will tell you how happy you can be. You see happiness is a choice.

So how happy are you?

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