This morning on my way to the gym, I had to wait for some cars driven by high school students on the way to their graduation.

As I was waiting, I noticed the face of one of the students. He was smiling.

He had one of those smiles that showed pure happiness. He deserved to be happy. He was about to graduate from high school. He was about to graduate from high school. He was about to experience the culmination of 12 years of school work.

It made me smile to think about what a great feeling that must be. Then it occurred to me. Why can’t we feel like that whenever we want?

Why can’t we be happy now?

Then I saw a Facebook post by Runner’s World magazine. It showed some runners with this quote by George Sheehan:

“Happiness is different than pleasure. Happiness has something to do with struggling and enduring and accomplishing.”

That certainly fits the high school graduate. What does it mean for us?

Perhaps it means that we should be more tomorrow than we are today, and that we should be better tomorrow that we are today.

When I’m running, my head and my body are always arguing. My body keeps screaming about how much pain it’s in. It constantly wants to stop.

But my head keeps reminding me how good that it’s going to feel when I’m finished. So I struggle on. I endure. And in the end, I accomplish.

Think about the times in your life when you’ve wondered if you were going to get through a situation. You wanted to give up and move on to something else.

But something deep inside told you how great it was going to be when you finished, when you overcame the obstacles.

So you struggled on. You endured. You accomplished.

And you were happy.

Remember in the struggles that if you endure, happiness comes with the accomplishment.