Happiness is my natural state.  Unhappiness, suffering is a choice.  It’s common horse sense.  Whatever happens “out there” or “in here,” I–only I!–choose how I am emotionally in here.

I refuse to believe some Cosmic Puppet Master pulls my emotional strings.  Impossible as it may seem, despite physical pain, from a stubbed toe to terminal pancreatic cancer, when someone insults me, punches me in the nose, stabs me in the back, I choose to suffer or not!  Understanding there is no necessary, automatic link from internal or environmental insult to mental and emotional pain frees me to be happy.