Happiness is a Moral Obligation

In the spirit of my husband's new view on keeping his blog all about the good things. I thought I would follow suit.
Who doesn't want to be happy? So I thought I would take excerpts and general ideas from Dennis Prager's book on happiness called "Happiness is a Serious Problem and write them here.
Let's start at the beginning. Dennis Prager is a radio talk show host and he talks about the importance of happiness frequently and always in the 2nd hour of his show on Fridays. So some comments from me first. I thoroughly believe that we decide if we want to be happy. My sister seems to believe lately given her own circumstances that she should be the victim and I think that stems from unhappiness. I don't think she reads this so it won't matter so much for her, but it does for me. It reminds me how much work it is to be happy. It is so easy to blame others and be unhappy. Some out there would say the opposite but I think not. It also brings to my mind personal responsibility.
Dennis Prager in the first chapter of his book "Happiness is a Serious Problem" describes happiness as a moral obligation. In that sense it is up to us to change out mindset and consciously be happy. It is important to be happy for ourselves but as Prager states "We owe it to our husband, wife, our fellow workers, our children, our friends, indeed to everyone who comes into our lives, to be as happy as we can be....We owe it to others to work on our happiness." It is a moral obligation. He believes that we act more decently when we are happy.
Just think about those in your life that have a sour attitude or who always focus on the negative. Do you want to be around them? I don't. So something to think about. More to come.