There is a saying here in Sweden that whatever you find yourself busy at doing on New Year’s day, it will be what you will be doing the rest of the year. So, with that philosophy in mind, many make sure they get their housekeeping done well before Jan 1st!

That sounds like a carte blanche opportunity to spend the day enjoying family, friends, hobbies, nature – all the things we love to do together with all the ones we love to be with!

Being on earth, making a living, taking care of business, dealing with ‘things’…there’s a lot on everyone’s plate as we go along each day trying to figure life out and make sense of the meaning of it all. And in the middle of the mix, our seeking happiness for ourselves and for others.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be happy even most of the time? The key indicators of our happiness are the choices we make every single day. We make a lot of choices… all the time, every day… and they are the measure of the happiness we want. The trick is in learning to make good choices, the ‘right’ choices, and the best choices – consistently.

Thank goodness, the word on the street is that life is an open book test and the ‘What To Do To Get Through Life’ page is the first chapter under the heading, “Choose The Right”.

There’s even a handy checklist to help keep you on track:

It comes to the point where we realize that ‘there is no other way’ in finding real happiness and joy except through obedience to the principles these laws of happiness are based on. These are just the basic laws that Jesus Christ literally wrote in stone… they were meant to be the foundation of what we would ultimately choose to make of ourselves in this life and in the life to come. And because of His love and hope for us, His words are His promise that He will help us in making good choices to truly be happy if we let Him…

Alfred Lord Tennyson – 1809-1892

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
   The flying cloud, the frosty light:
   The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
   Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
   The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
   For those that here we see no more;
   Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
   And ancient forms of party strife;
   Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
   The faithless coldness of the times;
   Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
   The civic slander and the spite;
   Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
   Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
   Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
   The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
   Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

https://www.comeuntochrist.org/