Hi Hope,
Very hopeful message you write, focused on the positive, I love it!
Just yesterday I was reading the writings of Antony deMello, and what he wrote about happiness.
"Take a look at the world around and see the unhappiness in you and around you. Do you know what causes this unhappiness? You will probably say loneliness or oppression or war or hatred or atheism. And you will be wrong. There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them. Because of these false beliefs you see the world and yourself in a distorted way. And because of your programming you don't even realize this.
What are these false beliefs that block you from happiness? First: You cannot be happy without the things you are attached to and you consider so precious. False. There is not a single moment in your life when you do not have everything that you need to be happy. The reason you are unhappy is because you are focusing on what you do not have rather than on what you have right now.
Another belief: Happiness will come if you manage to change the situation you are in and the people around you. Not true. You stupidly squander so much energy trying to rearrange the world. What makes you happy or unhappy is not the world and the people around you, but the thinking in your head.
Another false belief: If all your desires are fulfilled you will be happy. Again, false. In fact it is these very desires and attachments that make you tense, frustrated, nervous, insecure, and fearful.
If you wish to attain lasting happiness you must be ready to give up all your desires and wants and possessions. Not by renouncing them because what you give up violently you are forever bound to. Instead, by seeing them for the nightmares that they are, then, whether you keep them or not, they will have lost their grip over you, their power to hurt you, and you will be out of that darkness of fear and unhappiness."
--Antony deMello The Way to Love