Welcome to the happiness podcast

the happiness podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff.

We're listening to this happiness podcast because we want to be happier.

We want to find more joy and peace in our lives on a daily basis.

One beautiful way of developing this skill, this experience of happiness in our lives,

is to be thankful, is to be grateful for life and all the wonderful things that it brings us. It sounds so easy.

So why don't we do it? It's about how we see things. Our ego, our inner voice looks at the world

around us and says, is this normal? Is this something that I should have, ought to have, or is this a gift,

something beautiful that I can be excited for. And our egos tend to be very greedy. Once they've tasted something, once they've had something,

they want more, and they don't really care about the thing they have anymore.

They just want more. The thing that created such joy at first is like,

ugh, no big deal anymore. I want more. I want to share two of my favorite book series that I really love to

illustrate this point. One is from Harry Potter and you remember his cousin Dudley? Well in the book one year they're

celebrating Dudley's birthday and he's counting how many presents he's getting

this year for his birthday and as he's counting he's getting this year for his birthday.

And as he's counting, he's realizing he's getting the same amount of presents

that he got the previous year.

And even though they're wonderful, great presence, he's so upset because he's not getting more than he got the previous year.

Now let's contrast that to one of my favorite book series Little House on the Prairie.

Well in this true story, when Christmas comes,

Laura is living out on the prairie and she's not expecting anything for Christmas, but when her parents

give her some candy for Christmas, she's so grateful and so thankful. And if we've lived long enough I know we've all seen examples of this.

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