When I think about people who are truly happy, I have to mention my two sisters. At the time I’m writing this book, my little sister, Bella, is eleven years old. My older sister, Rebecca, is twenty-five. She came to live with our family in 2005 as an exchange student from Taiwan, and now she is just as much a part of our family as the rest of us.
Bella is only in fifth grade, but I know a lot of fifth graders who already take life very seriously. Bella does not! She loves to laugh and play, and if she is involved in something, she is determined to make it a fun, happy experience for herself and for everyone else. She has a great sense of humor, which I think is very mature for her age. Unlike a lot of kids her age, she does not laugh at bathroom jokes or sarcastic comments about other people. She knows what is genuinely funny in a clean, wholesome way, and she can dish out that kind of humor like no eleven-year-old I have ever met.
I think Bella’s main goal in life right now is to put smiles on other people’s faces. She just loves to make others happy; that’s what she thinks about, so that’s how she lives. And if a person’s goal is to make others happy, then that person will definitely be happy too.
Another thing Bella does is refuse to get upset over little things. Not long ago, one of her friends was mean to her and blocked her on Instagram. Instead of coming home from school that day pouting about the situation or being dramatic and feeling that no one liked her anymore, Bella simply said, “That was ridiculous. I mean, that was ree-diculous!” She could have easily been hurt or angry, but she was not. In fact, the whole incident really did not faze her. She is not the kind of person who lets other people’s actions upset her, and that’s a big reason she is so happy.
Rebecca is one of those people who is cute and happy and bubbly almost all the time. She loves to laugh and to make others laugh, and she really enjoys telling jokes. The problem with her jokes is that they may be funny in her native language or in the country where she was raised, but they are not funny at all in English or in Louisiana!
Here’s one of her jokes: “One time a banana got hot and took off his coat and slipped.” (Yep, that was the joke.) Here’s another one: “Once there was a match that had an itchy head; he scratched it and caught himself on fire.”
Ha! See what I mean? The fact that the jokes are not funny ends up making Rebecca’s attempts at humor kind of funny in their own way. We all laugh at her jokes just because she tries so hard to spread laughter around our family. Rebecca is strong and positive, and other people cannot help but be happy around her. I am so glad she joined our family because just her presence makes me happy.
While I’m thinking about happy people, I can’t overlook my great-uncle Si. Seriously, he is the happiest, funniest, most positive person I know. I’m sure a lot of people my age cannot say they have a strong relationship with their great-uncle, but Uncle Si and I are very close. I like being around him as much as possible, because any time he is involved in anything, it’s a guaranteed laugh. He has the ability to make anything fun and to see the humor in things that might be frustrating to other people.
Recently, Uncle Si was duck hunting in very cold weather with Papaw Phil and my uncles. Suddenly, their boat began to sink. I was not there, but I heard the sinking boat brought out everyone’s true personality. Papaw Phil took it like a man; he just stood there and watched while the boat sank and then walked very calmly through the water to the duck blind, even though he was about to freeze. My uncles were jumping around screaming, all shouting out different ways to fix the boat. And Uncle Si just laughed and told jokes while he watched the boat go down.
One time something really sad happened to Uncle Si; his house was infested with termites. He and his wife, Christine, had lived in that house for a long time. It was home to them and they really loved it. The termites did a lot of damage to the house before Uncle Si realized it, so he and Christine had no choice but to move out before it fell down.
Uncle Si’s response to the situation was not, “Oh, poor me. I’m losing the house I’ve loved and lived in all these years.”
His response was, “Okay. We’ve got termites. We need to get a new house.”
So they moved into a new home, and they are very happy there. I know the reason Uncle Si handled this situation so well is that he does not let his circumstances determine his happiness. He is a happy person, no matter where he lives. He was happy in his old house, and all he had to do when he moved to the new house was take his happiness with him. And for Uncle Si, that was no problem at all!
WE WERE HAPPY BEFORE . . .
Lots of little girls like the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I was one of them. One of the songs in the movie is “Whistle While You Work.” The lesson of the song is that work—whether it’s homework or cleaning your room or a job in some kind of business—does not have to be boring or hard. It can be fun if you think of ways to make it fun. I have never been good at whistling, but I love to sing while I work. In fact, I have always turned my study guides into songs or raps to help me remember things.
A lot of people think the job I have now—on Duck Dynasty—is really fun. They say they would do anything if they could be a television star. Being on TV is fun at times, but at other times it’s hard work—just like anybody else’s job. I can choose to be happy about it or to complain about it because I have to film instead of going out with my friends. I almost always decide to be cheerful about it, because that just makes life a whole lot easier than being angry or disappointed.
I guess I learned to be happy when I was very young and worked in my family’s duck-call business. This was way before most people ever heard of Duck Commander. Serious hunters knew about my papaw Phil’s company, but not many other people did. Even though the company was not the big business it is now, it took all of us in the family to make it successful—even me, when I was six or seven years old.
When I was that age, my older brother, John Luke, and I worked for Duck Commander during the summers and at other times when we were not in school. Our cousins Reed and Cole (Jase and Missy’s sons) worked with us. The four of us are very close in age. John Luke and Reed were born during the same year. About two years later, Cole and I were born within several months of each other. So all of us have grown up together, and now our two families live right across the street from each other.
When all of us were young, we’d pile into someone’s car and make the trip to Mamaw Kay (most people call her “Miss Kay”) and Papaw Phil’s house, which is about forty-five minutes from our house. In those days, my grandparents ran the Duck Commander business from their home. They had enough land to build a warehouse on their property, so that’s where the boys and I went when we “went to work.” We packed boxes, answered phones, and did everything else we could to fill orders for duck calls. The song “Hollaback Girl” was popular at that time, and we sang it often, calling it our “warehouse song.”
At the end of each day, Mamaw Kay gave us each five dollars. But those payments were not our greatest rewards. Our greatest rewards were all the good times we spent with our grandparents and the lessons we learned from them.
Mamaw Kay and Papaw Phil did not have much money back then, and they definitely were not “famous” like they are today. But they were happy. The boys and I never questioned that. We saw our grandparents work really, really hard to make a small business successful. We saw them love God, love each other, and love our family. We knew from the time we were really young that these things are what make people truly happy.
Mamaw Kay has been a happy person for as long as I can remember. She is the type of grandmother who always has a big hug for her grandchildren, who loves to teach us lessons from the Bible and important things about life, who makes us cookies or our favorite meal for no special reason, and who always sees the best in us. I don’t mean she overlooks our faults or lets us get away with being disobedient. She never had any trouble punishing us when we were little (for example, if we argued in her house, we had to go outside until we could be nice to e
ach other), but she is also quick to compliment us when we do well, and she tells us often how much she loves us.
Papaw Phil has also been happy for as long as I can remember. I don’t think a lot of people realize this about him because he comes across so differently from Mamaw Kay. He is not one of those sweet, cuddly grandfathers who wraps you up in his arms and starts swinging you around when you go to see him. He’s a man who is happy because he is totally comfortable with himself, and he has no need to impress anybody. He knows what he believes and he sticks to it, no matter what other people think. He tells the truth exactly as he sees it, and if people don’t like it, that does not bother him. I have never seen him sad or shaken; he is solid. And he’s happy.
When I think about high school students like me and about all the drama that goes on because someone does not feel accepted by the popular group, I get really sad. Some students spend so much time being upset and disappointed, when they could spend that same amount of time doing what makes them happy and following their dreams—instead of getting upset about what other people think. If we could all just take a lesson from Papaw Phil and accept ourselves even if others reject us, we would be a lot happier. People who can be who they are, and accept themselves as they are, are some of the strongest, happiest people in the world. My papaw Phil is definitely one of them!
All of our family is happy—because our happiness is not based on being on TV or on any of the things that come with it. Not that we never face struggles and not that we never get down about something, but underneath it all, we really are happy. Our happiness is based on loving God and knowing God loves us, and on loving each other. That’s what makes us happy, happy, happy.
Live Original Challenge
1. In your own words, why is this true: “If you think happy thoughts, you can live a happy life”?
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2. What thoughts are you thinking today that will lead you to the future you want tomorrow?
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3. What one thought can you change today in order to make yourself just a little more happy?
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4. Take a minute to think about the thoughts you’ve had today. Do those thoughts make you happy and lead you in a good direction?
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DON’T FORGET
If you’ll think happy, you’ll be happy!
“Anything is possible if a person believes.”
—Mark 9:23
CHAPTER TWO
Dream Big
I’m a dreamer. I guess I was born that way, because I can’t remember ever not having a dream. My mom’s mother, whom I call Two-Mama, tells me that remembering little quotes and sayings is important. Although I can’t remember where I heard it, one of my favorite quotes is: “Dream big and tomorrow make your dreams reality.” Thankfully, I have lots of family and friends who not only encourage me to dream big, but who also totally believe in me and are always there to help my dreams come true with God’s help.
I believe everything starts with a dream. Every great thing definitely starts with a dream. The things that change the world start as little ideas or as little projects, and they become something big. If you do not have a dream, you do not know where you want to go or what you want to do. Without a dream, you miss out on the adventure of trusting God and giving your faith a chance to work. I want to spend the rest of my life giving my faith a chance to work. I want to spend every day dreaming the biggest dreams I can think of and then praying about them and working toward them. I hope that’s true for you too.
MY BIG DREAM
For as long as I can remember, my dreams have had something to do with serving God and helping other people learn about Him. When I was little, my mom used to come into my room every night at bedtime and pray with me. After she left I prayed by myself. My prayer was always the same: I asked God to show me how to spread His Word. I just wanted a chance to tell someone about Him, so every night, that’s what I asked God for. I did not realize until years later that this prayer was also a dream.
The older I got, the more the teachers and ministers at my church encouraged my friends and me to share Jesus with other people. That sounded like a great idea, and I had been onto it most of my life, but I had a problem: everyone I had ever met already knew Jesus. Seriously, there was a time when I did not know anyone who needed to hear about Him. I couldn’t help it; I lived in a small town with lots of churches!
I went all the way through elementary school without ever finding someone who needed to know about Jesus, but I never stopped praying about it or wishing God would answer that prayer. Night after night, I asked God, “Would you please send me somebody so I can share about who you are? Just one person!” For a long time, that didn’t happen.
Finally, when I was fourteen years old, I started filming Duck Dynasty with my family, and those episodes first aired when I was fifteen. Because of that television show, I now have opportunities to talk about God every single day—to about a million people. It’s crazy when I think about how I get to speak to big audiences or do magazine interviews and now write a book. I can tweet a Bible verse or an encouraging truth about God, and it can go out to people everywhere almost instantly.
For years I could not find anybody to talk to about Jesus. Then all of a sudden, God turned my dream into reality. I can talk to people everywhere because of a TV show. I don’t have to look for people to share Jesus with anymore. The way I look at it, our TV show is not an opportunity to put myself in the spotlight; it’s a chance for me to put my love for God in the spotlight. Now I can talk about Him to people on the other side of the world from my phone. I love the way God has answered that prayer and made that dream come true for me.
Maybe I’m a dreamer because I come from a family of dreamers. My dad’s family and my mom’s family both include people who have dreamed big dreams and seen them come true. My parents definitely inherited the “dream gene.” In completely different ways, they are both dreamers. They inspire me, and I hope they will inspire you too.
MY DAD: HE DOESN’T GIVE UP ON A DREAM
My dad is actually the one who took his dad’s dream to the next level. Papaw Phil had the vision to make Duck Commander a good duck-call company but not a huge international brand. What happened with my dad and my grandfather was kind of like what happens in a relay in a track meet: one person runs part of the race with a baton and then hands it off to the next person, who keeps on running and takes the baton farther. Papaw Phil was the lead runner. He had the Duck Commander dream, and he started the race; then he handed the company off to my dad, and my dad has taken it farther than Papaw Phil ever thought it would go.
My dad dreamed of growing Duck Commander by getting Papaw Phil’s duck calls into more and bigger stores than they were in when he first became CEO of the company. With a lot of effort, he did. You can now find Duck Commander products in places like Bass Pro Shops and Walmart. That’s because of my dad. This was not Papaw Phil’s dream, but he never tried to talk my dad out of pursuing his dream. Even though he started Duck Commander and it was his dream for many years, once he turned the company over to my dad, he never stood in my dad’s way, and he never discouraged him from doing something he thought would be good.
My dad is also the one who had the vision for Duck Dynasty. Even though Papaw Phil was part of the Duck Commander television show on Outdoor Channel, a show for serious hunters, he didn’t think people would be interested in a whole show about our family. He didn’t think we were all that interesting and didn’t realize that our lives really are different from most. But when someone in the entertainment industry mentioned the concept of Duck Dynasty to my dad, he could see it immediately. He knew it was a great idea. He thought it was worth doing, even though he had to work really hard and faced a lot of obstacles trying to make all the arrangemen
ts for it. At one point, it was the number one show ever to be on cable television.
I think it’s clear that my dad is a visionary, but most people do not have any clue that he is also incredibly hardworking and that he will persevere through any kind of problem. He probably got his persistence from Mamaw Kay and Papaw Phil, because from the time he was really young, he saw Mamaw Kay persevere through rough times just to keep her family fed and to keep the lights on. Later, he saw Papaw Phil stay the course with his duck calls, even when he and Mamaw Kay did not have much money. In those days, Papaw Phil had to travel from one sporting goods store to another in small towns to try to get people to buy his products.
When my dad gets an idea or a project in his mind, he does not let it go. He is fully committed to it and works on it until it works. He does not get intimidated if it looks like it might not happen; he just digs in deeper and keeps going for it. When he runs into obstacles, he finds a way to go over them, under them, around them, or through them. When he thinks something is a yes, he refuses to take no for an answer. He might have to work extra hard, he might have to get creative or take a different approach, but he makes things happen. He does not stop until they do.
I have learned from my dad that we cannot just have a great idea or a big dream and then drop it when we have a hard time getting it done. We have to believe in it like crazy. If we go after it one way and that does not work, then we have to pursue it another way.
Whatever your dream is, decide right now that you will not be denied. Don’t let haters talk you out of it, and don’t let a bad attitude make you give up on it. When someone or something starts telling you no, stand up and shout, “Yes!” If you want your dream to come true, be committed to it, be determined to make it a reality, and don’t stop going after it until you see it come true.
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