“…godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.” (1 Timothy 6:6-7 In 2000, three girls from a very wealthy neighborhood in Huston, Texas robbed four convenient stores. The ringleader was a beautiful 16-year-old girl; she thought up and talked two other 16-year-old girls into actually robbing these four stores with facemasks and guns. When these girls were finally caught, an unbelievable controversy emerged, it was so bad they moved the trial to the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The families of the girls wanted their children to be treated with absolute leniency. They felt that their girls were too young to know or understand what they were doing. The press and the majority of others wanted them to be charged, sentenced, and treated like anyone else who committed crimes of this type. These three girls were in shock when the Judge announced what their sentence was going to be. It was almost as if their expression voiced, “How could you do something like this to me?” Their faces showed confusion, disbelief, fear, and then they began to cry! The Judged said, “I do not want to see or hear you cry over this sentencing. You should have thought about that before you robbed those four convenient stores at gunpoint.” I wonder why these girls did such a thing. They came from wealthy families and had enough money at their disposals to buy anything they wanted. How could they even consider that it would be OK to rob at gunpoint! Did they do it just for the fun of it, for the thrill it gave them? Did they not think beyond the moment that they were in, to what the consequences would be? Did dissatisfaction, resulting from lack of interest, occur from boredom in their lives? Or was it about attention? Could this have been a pattern for them? Did these girls never learn to pay for their petty transgressions? Can we too, be on that road to destruction because we are looking in all the wrong places for happiness and contentment to make our lives worthwhile and have meaning? I think we have all wondered this. I also think we all have made bad choices to justify our lives when we are feeling less content and unhappy. In life, it is almost as if, we do things just for the thrill of it. I have seen people miserable with life and others who are content and happy. I have seen a 15-year-old give up on life and seem old. And an elderly man young at the age of 90. So how will we find laughter, joy, happiness, and contentment instead of unhappiness, frustration, or lack of contentment? I think it has to be a choice, an individual choice each person must make. For in all reality nothing or no one can make us happy, sad, mad, or glad, as we come to understand this, the journey happiness and contentment begins. “Make a rule, and pray God to help you to keep it, never, if possible, to lie down at night without being able to say, “I have made one human being, at least, a little wiser, a little happier, or a little better this day.”” Charles Kingsley.