Here is a scene no doubt repeated in countless households last month. A small child tears into a pile of Christmas presents, scattering wrapping paper everywhere, pushing aside one gift after another to look for more. Finally opening the last package, the child looks around in puzzled expectation and ask, "Is that all there is?"

     What that child has not yet learned is that happiness is not found in things. Happiness cannot be purchased, or given by one person to another. The commercial world is in the business of trying to sell happiness. Merchants want to convince us that we will be happy when we buy their beer, their clothes, their electronics, their car. Even if we buy, and even if we are satisfied with the purchase, we soon discover that we have not bought happiness.

     Happiness is not something to be bought or sought; instead, happiness is a by-product of the things we do. Happiness is not so much in getting as in giving. Winston Churchill said, "We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give."

     The bride insists on a "story-book" wedding, far more than she and her family can afford. Hundreds of guests, exotic food and drink, an expensive band. Her parents go into debt to give their daughter the "Cinderella Wedding" she wants. Guests feel obligated to shower her with lavish gifts. When the festivities end and the partying guests are gone, she sits surrounded by all the "things" she had anticipated with such expectation, and says to her mother, "But why am I not happy?"

     We are conditioned to expect happiness…"when I get out of high school, when I get a college degree, when I get the job I want, when I get married, when I have children, when I retire." We seem to be caught up in the constant pursuit of happiness, perhaps not ever feeling that we have "arrived." That feeling is expressed in the song, "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows."

     As December merges into January, and 2009 into 2010, the past season can be a reminder of the reward of giving. Rotary's motto "Service Above Self" is an ongoing encouragement for Rotarians to be alert to community, regional, and world needs. Happiness is not something for Rotarians to seek in 2010; it will be a by-product of the things Rotarians do in 2010.

     RI President John Kenny said, "there is much to be done in these next months." Our duty and our privilege as Rotarians, he said, is "to make changes that will shape the course not only of the months but of the years and decades that lie ahead." He reminds us that "we are all volunteers, serving in a volunteer organization," and he encourages us to promote the Rotary ideal of service.

     "Service Above Self" is another way of saying "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Those two phrases identify the source of Rotarians' happiness.