Hear No Evil covers his ears, See No Evil covers his eyes and Speak No Evil covers his mouth. Those Japanese monkeys have been teaching lessons about life for several hundred years. They are familiar to most of us.

One problem is nobody is completely sure what the lessons are. Some call it the Japanese Golden Rule. A way to live that avoids trouble. Others think it originated in China based on a Buddhist teaching that avoiding evil in these ways will stop or reduce the spread of it and you will have fewer chances to be affected by it. Good ideas. Let’s say both are correct.

My version would add a couple of monkeys to that ancient wisdom. The fourth monkey in my picture should be in a pose similar to “The Thinker”. His name is Know Yourself. Monkey number five should be content and smiling. He is Enjoy Life.

The extra monkeys would be representing things it takes to succeed. I mean real success, not just accumulating money. A visual reminder that being secure, relaxed and comfortable with life is possible. I believe that as more people achieve real personal success we all benefit.

Call the process whatever you like. Seeing the light, achieving balance, gaining perspective or something else. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is you need it or something just like it to construct a happy life.

You start with study. Careful examination of yourself. You are a unique person and no set of specific goals written by others will work. Your experiences, feelings, desires, likes and dislikes don’t match mine. You are really the only person alive who knows what is most important to you.

Success is accomplishing what you attempt to do. Achieving your goals. It can’t be done until you make up your mind what your goals are. Like other things you have studied the answers become obvious when you have enough information.

Careful and honest self appraisal gives you your personal ideal destination. Your personal goal. The mental place you really want to be. Not necessarily where others want to be. Then it’s a matter of making a plan and step by step movement toward that place.

You will never completely get there because life will never be perfect but each step closer makes life better. You can handle the bad parts, you have less and less fear. Being better today than yesterday is a habit that creates real happiness.

There are people who don’t like the inconvenience of traveling. They travel on vacations because they believe they will enjoy the destination.

Sometimes that destination is not what they were expecting and they spend their vacation time complaining, regretting and unhappy.

Others have learned that the whole experience is interesting and hardships on the way or imperfections after arrival won’t spoil it. Which one would you like to be?

You are traveling through life and will face your share of failed plans, bad luck and sad times along the way. Gaining a healthy perspective and forming mental and physical habits that work for you, not against you will make you more like the happy vacationer.

Happiness and enjoyment are mental states. There is no surgical happiness transplant. You can’t buy it, borrow it, win it in a card game or inherit it. You can’t hold it in your hand, put it in a safety deposit box or save it for a rainy day. You can not generate it with alcohol, pills, inhaling or injections.

There is no single set of circumstances that equals happiness. No amount of money or possessions guarantees it. No particular number of friends does it.

It doesn’t matter where you live, where you came from or what you do for a living, You can be fat, thin, tall or short. You either find life interesting and fun today and look forward to whatever tomorrow brings or not.

See, hear and speak no evil plus knowing yourself leads to enjoying life. None of those things cost money or are difficult to learn. We can do it.

Here’s to the five monkeys.