Expectations Lead to Resentments

Hazelden - Thought for the Day:

Life is not always what one wants it to be, but to make the best of it as it is, is the only way of being happy.
--Jennie Jerome Churchill

We are generally so certain that we know what's best for ourselves. And we are just as often certain that what we think is best will guarantee happiness. Perhaps we should reflect on all the times in the past when our wishes didn't come true--fortunately.

Did any one of us expect to be doing today, what we each are doing? We may have expected children, a particular kind of home, a certain career, but did we really anticipate all that life has wrought? Addiction, and then recovery from it, was probably not in our pictures. But it does fit into the big picture. The happiness we experience today probably doesn't visit us in the way we anticipated a few years back. But it is measured out according to our needs. The choice to be happy with what is, is ours to make, every moment.

I can take life as it is, and trust that it is just right, just what it needs to be. The big picture guarantees me lasting happiness. Today's experiences will move me a step closer.


You are reading from the book:

Each Day a New Beginning by Karen Casey

Copyright 1982, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without the written permission of the publisher.