By Pattie Mihalik

As my dad neared the end of his life, he said he had something important he wanted me to know.

“Don’t be sad when I go,” he said. “Just remember I’ve always lived such a good life. And I’ve always been surrounded by the love of my children. I’ve been an incredibly lucky man.”

He was right when he said he was always surrounded by the love of his children. He was more than our dad. He was our hero, our guiding light. We truly worshipped him.

But lucky? I wondered how he could claim he was lucky to have had a such a good life. To me he was far from lucky.

His hassle for survival started months before he was born when his own father died of influenza, leaving behind five kids that would have to constantly battle hardship and poverty.

Yet as I look back at the stories he told me about his childhood, I realize he never told hardship stories to show how poor they were. He was sharing the humor he found in most every situation.

I always found it heartbreaking that he had to drop out of school at the tender age of 10 to help support his family. When others mentioned how smart he was, he countered by saying he was good at catching flies.

Dad’s three older brothers ran a small coal hole, digging for coal whenever the mine didn’t flood.

Dad’s job was to put the big chunks of coal in burlap bags then lug them out to the highway to sell to passing motorists.

I don’t know if people really needed to buy coal by the piece or if they just felt sorry for the poor little boy standing at the side of the highway.

Yet he always talked about his boyhood as if it were one great adventure after another.

One “adventure” he laughed about was a story that broke my heart. When his stomach hurt from hunger, he climbed a neighbor’s apple tree and sat in the tree filling up his stomach. In that point of telling the story he broke into laughter. “I didn’t know I was filling up on crabapples,” he laughed. “I had the worst stomachache of my life.”

Dad’s stories were filled with love and laughter for one main reason: He was always a person that loved life and loved people.

Looking back at my years with him it’s clear he was an upbeat, happy person. He found joy in nature and in his family. He often took me hiking in the mountains or fishing in the bay in his little aluminum jon boat.

To this day I know it’s because of those times with my dad that I thrive best in nature or on the water.

Every time I think of my dad I picture him with a smile on his face. That’s basically because he found joy in the simple things of life.

Just as I seem to have inherited Dad’s love of nature and the great outdoors, I’ve always credited him for the happiness that is so much a part of me.

I’m fond of saying just as I inherited his brown eyes, tough skin and alley-oop teeth, I also must have inherited his innate happiness.

Sometimes it seemed like a silly thought as I wondered whether something like happiness is really inherited.

This month more scientists weighed in on that question, stating that research shows 40 percent of our happiness is genetic.

Psychotherapist Susan Zinn’s research concludes some people seem to be born with a happier, more carefree disposition than others and some of our sense of well-being may be in our genes.

“Your genes make up an estimated 40 percent of your ability to be happy,” she reports.

But scientists say that doesn’t mean if you aren’t born with certain genes you’re destined to be unhappy. It’s completely possible to rewire our brains because 60 percent of happiness comes down to lifestyle and other environmental factors.

Zinn says happiness is typically determined by three components: Life satisfaction, feeling engaged with what you do every day and having meaning and purpose in life.

I’ve interviewed some people that suffered miserable lives yet gained a great deal of satisfaction when they embarked on a meaningful project to help others.

So it isn’t as important what genes you were handed as it is what you resolve to do in life.

Proven ways to increase happiness, research shows, also include exercise, getting out in nature and having a spiritual practice.

Whenever I read about an interesting study I often want to know more about how it was conducted. And sometimes I question a conclusion.

For instance, the study linking genes with happiness also claims these same genes can determine self-confidence. I think there’s a lot more that goes into gaining self-confidence than our gene pool. This is one area where family and environmental circumstances play a big role.

But, if nothing more, you can at least have “psychobabble fun” asking friends to weigh in on the question of how much one’s genes influences their happiness.

So I’ll start by asking you how much of your own happiness would you say is genetic, how much is due to your life experiences, and how much can you change?

It can be an interesting topic to ponder.

Contact Pattie Mihalik at newsgirl@comcast.net.