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Want to be Happy? Try Gratitude

Anybody can be successful, but you “gotta wanna.”

Want to be happy, try a dose of gratitude. Be grateful for the things and relationships you have. It is axiomatic that happiness comes from being grateful. Once a day take a pause and think about the things for which you are grateful – your family, your job, your friends, your next-door neighbor, your relatives, the car you drive, the opportunities that exist in this great land called America. Happiness in life is all about comparisons. Nobody is happy all the time. Unhappiness or dissatisfaction with your present lot is actually an opportunity to make things better. You have to be willing to change. You have to change – not the other person or happenstance. You have control over only one person – yourself. Ludwig Von Mises describes change as three steps. First, you must be dissatisfied with your present condition. You then have to desire to make change to improve your condition. Then, you must act on that desire to make the change.

The Left are unable to be happy. They are always concerned about oppression, racial and economic inequality, and diversity. They feel that these things must be rectified before they can be happy. Of course, the Left will never be satisfied with their improvements. There will always be something for which they have dissatisfaction. Their lot in life is always to foment turmoil because that is how the Left survives. People are not equal. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. You may never be a good AI engineer, but there are other things you are good at. To be happy you must embrace the good things and shore up the bad things. You may never be a great plumber, but you can hire someone who is. That is the beauty of our society. We all specialize in our interests. What we do have is equal opportunity to become the person of our dreams. To become that person we have to have a plan and a timetable, and we must have the burning desire to achieve the goals we set before ourselves. No goals, no timetable, and no desire equal no success.

What is Success?

Think about the people in your life that you consider to be successful. What made then successful? Was it having a goal? Was it hard work? Was it sacrificing near term activities to gain a long-term advantage? There is a formula for success. Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill is a book that explains the success principles and how to achieve success. I have read about and known people that I hold in high esteem for being successful. They achieved success, despite failures in their lives, to become people who I greatly admire. Did they experience failures? Every successful person suffers failures. It is how you perceive and react to those failures that make a difference. Thomas Edison was criticized for having 10,000 failures to invent the light bulb. His response was: “I have not failed 10,000 times; I have just found 10,000 things that did not work.” It is all a matter of attitude.

I knew a man named Nick Kolinski. He had four children and his daughter played on a softball team I was coaching. Nick had played football for the University of Southern Mississippi and was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings as a tackle. In his second year, he suffered a debilitating knee injury from which he never recovered. That injury meant a new direction in his life. He got married and went back to Hattiesburg, Mississippi where his family included the four children. He had an idea that people needed ice in Hattiesburg. He bought an ice business and delivered ice to his many customers. He also bought a tavern to go along with the ice business. As his children grew, he bought more businesses and each of his children ran one of the businesses. He worked hard, but always had time for God and family. His businesses included a moving company, a restaurant, the ice house, and the tavern. It was a family run business with his wife as the financial officer. We needed more softball coaches so Nick volunteered to be a softball coach. His teams were always well coached and he was my toughest opponent. The girls loved him. Here was a person that suffered an injury that meant a whole new way of life. He overcame that setback and became a respected and admired person in Hattiesburg. He could have succumbed to his injury, but had a dream, worked hard, and became successful.

My uncle Tony never graduated from high school. He opened a furniture business in Spokane, Washington. His business grew to the point that he decided to open a furniture warehouse. His business grew until he was the largest furniture seller in Spokane. One day he wanted his car washed. There was a car wash across the street from the furniture warehouse. He was disappointed in the service and, because the furniture business became highly competitive, he decided to sell the furniture store and buy the car wash, which was not doing much business. He grew the car wash business by improving service and getting contracts to wash the cars of the state police and several new car dealers. I worked for my uncle during my high school years. We clocked in when cars needed washing and punched out when there were no cars. He was a tough owner. My cousin and I worked for a dollar an hour – when there were cars to be washed. My uncle subsequently bought several car washes in Spokane and became the sole supplier of car washes in Spokane. His four car washes in Spokane were highly successful until one day an employee was de-greasing some equipment, threw a lighted cigarette into a drain, and the whole building burned down. My uncle continued on with the three remaining car washes. One day he decided that the car wash business was becoming too competitive. He had shown other people how to become successful in the car wash business. But the competition could not sustain all of the business in Spokane. He sold the car washes and opened a new business that catered to people who wanted to dine, dance and drink. He was so successful that he bought the attached store, tore down the common wall, and doubled the space of the existing business. So, here was a man that by all means could have been a mediocre person, but had a dream and the drive to succeed. He did not have any special talent, but he knew he wanted to be successful.

Anybody Can Be Successful

I believe that anybody can be successful by having an idea, the desire to be successful, and acting on that desire. Things may not turn out the way you wish, but a strong desire, a lot of hard work, and a little luck, things do work out. I have seen and heard of many people who inherited fortunes and were broke 10 years later because they did not follow the principles of successful entrepreneurship.

We have a dream for the Convention of States movement. Our goal is proposing amendments to the Constitution that strive for fiscal transparency and responsibility, that limit the terms of Representatives and Senators (much like the President), and that propose limitations on the government. We believe in self-governance, not the tyranny of a king or the tyranny of the deep state. Most of us want to live our lives and raise our families according to the Ten Commandments. We do not like the deep state imposing rules according to their standards. How can we live with $40 trillion of debt? It takes you to keep supporting the effort.

Jeff Brown, San Antonio

[JB1]

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Created:	2025-07-09 20:33 GMT
Updated:	2025-07-16 07:00 GMT
Published:	2025-07-09 23:16 GMT
Converted:	2025-11-11 12:06 GMT
Change Author:	Jeffrey Brown
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