To truly be happy in life, learn how to count joy.

Undoubtedly you've heard and even quoted these familiar and wise utterances: "Count your blessings." "Be happy with what you have." "Your health is the most important thing in life." But do we abide by these sayings? Do we really count our blessings or do we take them for granted? I will be the first to admit that I am guilty of taking them for granted sometimes and not counting them as joy. So let the record show that I am admitting it and quitting it. How about you?

This economy is one way that so many of us came to realize what was really important in life and in business. Each day is a new challenge but I am gaining the victory. Life is a series of choices and you make choices daily. The good news is you can too! You get to decide whether to be "Better or Bitter." Let's face it, we are living in stressful times, surrounded by a host of negative influences. All of those can steal your joy in a flash. You must guard your heart and the things you hold dear. However one can choose to reject, replace, rethink, reposition, or rebalance, recapture, reflect on or rejoice in the goodness that we have  been afforded.

Happiness is a great emotion but it’s a fleeting one, a feeling that is often  temporary. Ever luxuriate in the happiness of purchasing a dream car you always wanted or some other longed for item. What an awesome feeling. But how long did that happiness last? A day, a week, a month? What you want to experience is not happiness but true joy. Joy is different! Joy comes from making the right choices. You choose to be content, you choose to be satisfied, you choose to be positive no matter what. Joy does not allow past or current circumstances to get in the way. Never! In fact, joy is not attached to circumstances. Joy lives in the present not in the past or the future. It's contagious much the same as misery!

Think about this, "Where will that brand new car we spoke about wind up in 50 years and what do you really have that’s guaranteed except the present?: True joy knows. I have learned through bitter lessons that no one owns tomorrow. Joy knows that as well. A man comes into the world with nothing and leaves with nothing. Do you really believe that money can buy you joy? If so, I disagree. I think it can buy you some temporary happiness but it definitely cannot buy you joy. You might only be one X-ray away from realizing that within a moment your life can be drastically altered. So why do we take all our blessings for granted? Where does the difficulty lie? I think there are a few reasons for not realizing our blessings.

1. Our busy-ness has created such an imbalance in our lives that we don't have time to give it enough thought.
2. We never think, "It could happen to me." We often don’t feel that we deserve it. But we do.
3. We seem to want to think we have it worse than the next guy. My dad use to say, "Son, you will always meet folks with more and you'll meet folks with less.
4. We compare ourselves to everyone else. Other people become our standard. The truth is your value is not attached to what you do for a living or how much you make. Value comes from within.

I don't mean to make "choice" sound easy. As I said it is work, like swimming upstream against the current. Just keep practicing it and soon it will become a little easier and you'll be floating down stream wearing your "joy" on your face.

Here, I believe, is a recipe for acquiring a joyful spirit:
1. Reject negative people. Do not allow them in.
2. Rethink what's most important to you. Then ask why.
3. Reflect on those things.
4. Replace anything or anyone who's trying to steal your joy.
5. Re-balance so the things that are important to you are in first place.

Rejoice! That's it. It's all a choice.

Greta Schulz is president of Schulz Business SELLutions in West Palm Beach, FL. She is the author of "To Sell is Not to Sell" and a columnist for business journals around the country. Greta does corporate training for Fortune 1000 companies and she has an on-line training course for entrepreneurs.

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