Let’s be real: life can be hard. We get bogged down day-to-day. We’re not sure what to do with our lives. We’re not sure where to find happiness.
Sometimes, we forget that we have the power to make a difference in this world. We forget that we have the power to make our own happiness and it’s not easy to be positive all the time. In fact, some days can feel like the universe is conspiring against you, and that everything is going wrong.
If you’re feeling down and out, try to remember one thing: positivity is a choice. And if you want to be happy, then you have to choose happiness for yourself. You don’t need someone else’s permission or validation, you are enough right now, exactly as you are.
So what does that even mean? It means that when something happens that makes you feel bad (like when your boss yells at you, or you face rejection), instead of dwelling on it or thinking about how unfair it is (which only makes you feel worse), take a moment instead to think about how much better off we all are than most people in the world, even if only for a moment — focus on the good things in your life.
It might sound like it isn’t working because you’re still focusing on the negative stuff happening around you. But believe me when I say that it really does make a difference! Even if we can’t control what happens around us, we can always change how we react to it. And it’s amazing how much more content you’ll feel when you take a positive approach to life.
It’s been said that happiness is a choice. Here are 45 quotes to help you make that choice:
- “Life will bring you pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy.” – Milton Erickson
- “You cannot have a positive life and a negative mind.” – Joyce Meyer
- “Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.” – Zig Ziglar
- “Once you choose hope, anything’s possible.” – Christopher Reeve
- “The only place where your dreams become impossible is in your own thinking.” – Robert H Shuller
- “Positive anything is better than negative nothing.” – Elbert Hubbard
- “Don’t focus on negative things; focus on the positive, and you will flourish. – Alek Wek
- “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King Jr
- “We cannot solve problems with the kind of thinking we employed when we came up with them.” – Albert Einstein
- “Turn every life situation into a positive one.” – Rhonda Byrne
- “Always remember that you always take only one side, either you can get busy living or you can get yourself busy dying, and ultimately, it’s your choice.” – Stephen King
- “Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch onto the affirmative.” – Bing Crosby
- “Always know that the charm that you are looking for is actually equal to that tenderness of your heart.” – Jane Austen
- “Always keep in mind that it is never our abilities that showcase what we are, but it is our choice that we make that shows others what we are.” – J. K. Rowling
- “You must know that it is all in your hands and that if you want to be happy, then you can definitely be, but all ultimately lies in you.” – Leo Tolstoy
- “Always remember that the ones who actually have the courage in them to face the failures are the ones who actually achieve greatly in their lives.” – John F. Kennedy
- “A positive atmosphere nurtures a positive attitude, which is required to take positive action.” – Richard M. DeVos
- “Remember that success is the very war of attrition.” – Dax Shepard
- “Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.” – William James
- “Be the one who always lives in the sunshine, be the one who swims in to the sea and always be the one who actually drinks the wild air.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “In order to carry a positive action, we must develop here a positive vision.” – Dalai Lama
- “You are responsible for your life. You can’t keep blaming somebody else for your dysfunction. Life is really about moving on.” – Oprah Winfrey
- “Always keep yourself positive and remember that life is never about finding one’s own self; rather, it is only about creating one’s own self.” – George Bernard Shaw
- “Always remember that if you really wish to write about life, then you should first actually start or begin to live it well.” – Ernest Hemingway
- “You can’t make positive choices for the rest of your life without an environment that makes those choices easy, natural, and enjoyable.” – Deepak Chopra
- “One should always keep in mind that the biggest, as well as the greatest, is always to live contently with the little that you may have with you.” – Plato
- “You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.” – Jonathan Safran Foer
- “Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.” – Carl Jung
- “No matter what happens in life, be good to people. Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.” – Taylor Swift
- “Your positive action combined with positive thinking results in success.” – Shiv Khera
- “Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” – Paul Boese
- “Think of what you have rather than what you lack. Of the things you have, select the best and then reflect how eagerly you would have sought them if you did not have them.” – Marcus Aurelius
- “Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow. It only saps today of its joy.” – Leo Buscaglia
- “A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.” – Dale Carnegie
- “Perfect is boring. Humans are beautiful.” – Tyra Banks
- “A great obstacle to happiness is to expect too much happiness.” – Bernard de Fontenelle
- “Happiness is inward, and not outward; and so, it does not depend on what we have, but on what we are.” – Henry Van Dyke
- “There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.” – Epictetus
- “One should always remember to be happy in every moment of his life because h that very moment is actually his very life.” – Omar Khayyam
- “To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.” – Bertrand Russell
- “Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you.” – Mary Lou Retton
- “Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.” – Benjamin Disraeli
- “There are no regrets in life. Just lessons.” – Jennifer Aniston
- “Who says a dream must be something grand? Just become anybody. We deserve a life whatever, big or small, you are you after all.” – BTS
