My sons are incredible boys. Both have come from difficult pasts and endured more than most of us have to in a lifetime. My younger son has faced some significant physical trials throughout his 3 years of life. He was born with a cleft lip and palate and spent the first 21 months of his life in an orphanage. Since we adopted him two years ago, he has had to acclimate to a completely different culture, climate, and life. He has endured 9 painful surgeries that have been very scary for him. He has had just about every specialist at Primary Children’s Hospital poke or prod him. He has developed a good relationship with his plastic surgeon, as long as the surgeon is not in his scrubs. While I am grateful for the progress in medicine that can help fix the cleft for him, I wish it was not such a long, painful, scary, and difficult process for him.

Through it all, he is the happiest person I have known in my life. We were at the grocery store a few months ago and someone had their dog tied up outside. As I was carrying my son into the store he pointed out the dog. I asked him: “What does a dog say?” He replied “Ruff, ruff!” I then asked him, what do you say? He replied “Happy!” Every day when I get home from work he asks “How are you, Daddy?” I reply and ask how he is doing. His response is always the same: “I am happy!”

This is a boy who has reasons not to be happy. His life has been filled with significant change as his life has been totally uprooted and he has been through more physical trials than most of us will ever face. Yet, he is still happy and wants everyone around him to be happy.

Each day as I counsel couples struggling with a wide range of difficulties, a common feeling I hear from couples is that they are not happy with one another. Some feel quite the opposite and paint a picture of how they feel for the other that is anything but happy. They have real struggles that are valid and reasonable reasons to struggle with one another.

I think of the difference between these two situations. A three-year-old boy has the willingness and ability to find a way to be happy despite such difficult trials, while adults often struggle to find happiness in circumstances that my three-year-old would be able to cope with. He is a special boy and has a measure of patience and perseverance that I and most don’t have. However, I think we may all be able to get some of that if we change our focus. He looks for the “happy” in things. Too many of us don’t.

I don’t want to suggest that simply looking for the good is all anyone needs to do to be happy when difficulty surfaces. However, I think our ability to cope with our trials can be more difficult without concerted effort to find some happiness somewhere. My son knows how to do that. I am striving to learn what he knows, and hope to be able to share that with my clients. If we can look for it, perhaps someday when someone asks us how we are or how we feel about our spouse, we too can say: “I am happy!”.