If You Aren’t Happy With the Hand Life Has Dealt You, Reshuffle Your Hand!

A primary theme running through Howard Falco’s “I AM” is the importance of accepting the reality in our lives that we are powerless to change. He says that when any given situation challenges our happiness, life presents us with two options toward regaining our peace of mind: Either the situation itself has to change favorably or we have to change a belief we have that directly affects the situation. Let’s illustrate how this works…

From the time we are small, most of us are prepped by adults for the fairytale happiness of wedded bliss. So as we grow into adulthood, many of us believe we cannot be happy until we meet Mr. or Ms. Right. It’s very easy, then, for a person who is 35 and still single to be depressed about the fact that all of their friends are “happily” married and he/she is not. In this situation, one of two things has to happen in order for our 35 year old to regain his/her peace of mind. Either they have to meet Mr. or Ms. Right and tie the knot, or they have to change their belief that links happiness to married life.

If the situation doesn’t change (Mr. or Ms Right fails to some along) and our 35 year old friend continues to hold tight to his/her belief that they have to be married to be happy, they will continue to be miserable as a single person. But, if they choose to examine their belief, they will begin to see light within their self-imposed darkness. If our friend eventually decides that he/she can be happy in any life situation—whether single, married, divorced or widowed—then he/she will regain positive power over his/her life. And with that positive power they will experience happiness in the moment, despite still being single. They then will be at peace with themselves and with life as it is.

Too often we want life on our terms. We fail to understand that often life has greater power than we do, and as long as we choose to superimpose our beliefs over realities that we are powerless to change, we will create our own misery. Maybe life does deal us a bad hand on occasion, or maybe we create a bad hand out of what life offers us by discarding our chances for true happiness. Any time we butt heads with reality, we need to reexamine our hand (belief system) carefully. In doing so, we may find that we can easily score “21” if we throw out the cards (beliefs) that are keeping us from being happy in any given situation.

In the game of life, choose to play your hand mindfully and allow God to do the rest. You’ll be amazed at how your soul will begin to shine!