Happiness is my natural state.  Unhappiness, suffering is a choice.  Just common horse sense.  Whatever happens “out there” or “in here,” no one or thing out there decides how I choose to be emotionally, in here.   

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