Skipping Through Life

Occasionally during walks around Austin I come upon a Hopscotch game drawn out on a sidewalk or sliver of pavement. The courses are all the same, each comprising of a series of squares and ending with a safe or home square. When I watch the children skipping through the squares it reminds me of my youth.
Why do little girls skip and little boys run? Obviously it's because these are expressions of happiness. Somehow kids know happiness can not come from without, it comes from within. Maybe as adults we need to skip and run a little more often.
It would seem that regardless of emotional and physical hardship there is a place in each of us that is essentially happy and free. We tend to ignore this place because we think we never have enough. Our happiness is denied because we feel it depends on circumstances or something truly outside ourselves. There is only one key to happiness and that is gratefulness. If we are not grateful then no matter how much we have we will never find happiness. The next time I lose that key, maybe I'll run around or even skip a little bit. It's so easy to forget to be happy.