Are You Happy?
I ran across this the other day and it got me thinking about some things in my life.
It accompanied a blog on Apartment Therapy about simplifying your life. Which was interesting and reminded me of some of the things I’ve done recently (related to the list and not related).
My life is sometimes way overcomplicated. In 2011, I allowed too many things to be bigger deals than they really were so I’m trying to let the big stuff shrink as much as possible and let the little stuff just be little stuff.
What type of an answer would you give me if I asked you right now if you’re happy?
I think I’d still give a complicated answer some days. Right at this minute, I’m happy. I’m sitting on my comfortable couch, next to my handsome husband, in our beautiful apartment and I’m writing. I love writing. (Even though this blog will be posted around lunch time, I’m really writing it around 9 at night. You didn’t think I wrote every blog during lunch did you?)
I’m not entirely sure where this post is going… I just saw the simplicity of the image above and had to talk about it. The message that hit me was if I’m not happy (and I want to be), I need to change something.
Happiness isn’t an all day, everyday feeling for me. It’d be an overall satisfaction with the state of my life and the choices I’ve made to get there. Some things about my life, to be completely and overly honest, suck. Some of those things I can’t change (I can’t make my pancreas work again, I can’t make mean selfish negative people act differently and I can’t make Ohio winters more predictable) so my attitude about those things needs to change.
The start of a new year is always a good time to make a change, but it doesn’t take a significant date to make the choices to change what you can.
Have you made choices/changes in order to be happy?
Right now I’d say that I am in love with my life. That idea still sometimes catches me by surprise. I’ve changed so much over the last two years that in many ways I’m not the same person. Yes, I am happy. Love the chart you posted – wish I had a poster of it to hang in my kitchen.
Isn’t it interesting that we’re sometimes surprised by our own happiness? I know that feeling.
One of my favorite prayers = God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. How true that is. Right now I’m trying to accept the fact that my upstairs neighbors make constant noise & it does not make me happy at all. But beside punching them in the face, what else can I do? In all seriousness, it’s all about attitude & outlook. And it seems you have the right ones 🙂
I always appreciate your comments Stacey. I feel your pain on the upstairs neighbors! I’ve blogged about the dumb stuff they do and they will eventually have to deal with the consequences.