Happiness often comes when you least expect it in life

 I was always trained to protect women and girls growing up in the 1950s. I was taught always to be very polite. I was given a rifle at age 8 to protect the women in my family and bullets. So, I took this very seriously. However, when your job in life is to protect women and girls that you know it is sort of like a job and you are sort of like a soldier or a policeman or a knight or something like this. This is the way I was taught to think about this. 

So, happiness was when nobody died. Happiness was when everyone was safe. Happiness was when I could successfully do my job that my father had given me. This was what it was like to be raised in the 1950s to a more Conservative Libertarian family here in the U.S. if you were a boy who was responsible and trusted to protect your family by your father and mother and grandparents. You were expected even as young as 4 to die protecting your family if necessary. This had been this way as an American Child in the   the U.S. for maybe 400 years already. This didn't start changing until the Viet Nam War to become something different.

But, by then I was in my late teens or early 20s so I was set in my role for life by then.

I never expected to actually ever be happy as an adult simply because I didn't see how that could ever be possible given my role in life. However, by my 30s I was very happy especially from about 32 to 37 at which point my father died and it was difficult for me probably until I was 50 dealing with my father's passing.

But, the point I'm trying to make here is "Happiness often comes when you least expect it!"

For example, when I look back from my present 72 years of age I can truly say the happiest times of my life when I was young would be from about 15 to 18 and from about 5 to 10 years of age and from 32 to 37 and most of the time since I was 50.

What I'm saying here is that happiness is definitely possible in life but it likely is going to look at lot different to you when it happens than what you presently can imagine.

Why?

Because we are many people during our lives (most of us) in other words everything that happens to you changes you.

For example, when I look back at who I was basically I'm the same person I was at 10 years of age except I have layers and layers of armor and experience between me and that person. You aren't necessarily ready to die at any moment protecting your family completely at 10 but at some point you just have to be ready to die for your family at any moment waking or sleeping. This is just life.

But, despite being prepared for this you can be happy when you least expect it in life.

By God's Grace