The acclaimed actor Marlon Brando said this: “When a person has no home, he believes that having one is the greatest blessing. When someone lacks money, he believes wealth is everything. When two people in love are separated, a reunion feels like the ultimate joy.

“So, what would you say is the best thing in life? The truth is happiness is just a state of mind. The unhappily married long for divorce while the unmarried dream of marriage. The unknown crave fame while the famous yearn for privacy. The young want to grow up while the old want to turn back time. The poor want to be rich while the rich lie awake at night wishing to get back the peace of mind that they lost by chasing money. It’s human nature to think the grass is greener on the other side, but nothing grows without tending to what you have. The truth is no one has it all, but everyone has enough if they could just pause and see it.”

At one time or another, we all wanted to be someone else. I wanted to be a professional athlete, a rock star and a famous writer. Well, dream on! I could shoot a basketball pretty well while standing in my driveway with nobody defending me. I took guitar lessons to twang “Home on the Range” and my singing has been only in front of my girlfriend, who with her unfiltered sense of humor and said, “Your mother saved a lot of money by not paying for you to take voice lessons.”

After nearly four decades of teaching high school, I have become a famous writer in my own mind only, having written two published novels, four produced plays, these columns and other articles for the Times News. No, I don’t have it all, but with family and love and my writing, as Brando would say, I have enough.

He was right about aging. I couldn’t wait to be 21 and now I wish I could be 12 again, riding my bike down to the pond with fishing rod in hand. Getting old is a burden to the body, but the mind can put things in order as to what’s really important that it couldn’t do so many years ago and another one of them is about money.

The amount of my money I have matters less and less to me. Beautiful sunrises and sunsets cost nothing. Watching on TV a baseball game with my son or a hockey game with my daughter is worth more than anything I could buy in a store. Listening to music while playing rummy with my girlfriend is at no cost and comes with high satisfaction.

Happiness is a state of mind, Brando says. This raises many questions. Can you train your mind to be happy in a loveless marriage? Can a homeless person be happy while shivering in the cold on a street corner? How difficult is it for an elderly woman being admitted into a nursing home to keep a smile of her face? Are Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce happy despite the enormous media attention they receive? Elvis Presley was once asked if there was anything he wanted that was more than he had and he replied, “I want to walk down any street in America and not be Elvis Presley.”

Yes, Mr. Brando, the grass does look greener on the other side. The truth is we want to be somebody else. We want to be young again. We want more money and we want to be in love. I think of the words to a song sung by Martina McBride that tells us happiness can come from staying positive even when things don’t go right.

You can spend your whole life building something from nothing

One storm can come and blow it all away

Build it anyway

You can chase a dream that seems so out of reach

And you know it might not ever come your way

Dream it anyway

God is great, but sometimes life ain’t good

And when I pray it doesn’t always turn out like I think it should

But I do it anyway.

This world’s gone crazy and it’s hard to believe

That tomorrow will be better than today

Believe it anyway

You can love someone with all your heart for all the right reasons

And in a moment they can choose to walk away

Love ‘em anyway …

You can pour your soul out singing a song you believe in

That tomorrow they’ll forget you ever sang

Sing it anyway …

And so as long as we’re gifted with a brand-new day, we can try the best that we can to make happiness a state of mind, especially during this long and cold winter. On a January morning that’s too below freezing to go for a walk, do it anyway. When those we love are acting in a way that makes them unlovable, love them anyway. If we want to take a nap but there are things to do, take a nap anyway.

If we don’t have any reason to smile, smile anyway. It’s infectious. People will just smile with you. As Bob Marley sang, “Don’t worry about a thing ’cause every little thing is gonna be alright.”

We can remember that warmer days will follow these cold ones. Spring and summer will follow winter. The seasons give us a road map to a happy state of mind. Storm clouds will pass. The sun will rise again. This is the destination of our life’s journey toward well-being and contentment.

My girlfriend will once again remind me how off-key my voice is when I sing. No matter, I’m going to sing to her anyway.

Email Rich Strack at richiesadie11@gmail.com