Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Happiness

Are you happy?  If you are happy in one area of your life, but not others, where does that put you.  Should we strive for happiness in all area's of our life, or is that asking a bit too much.  Have I set my bar for happiness too high?  Should I really just be content, or is it ok to know that part of you isn't quite "there".

What is happiness to you?  I'm guessing that if I asked you what happiness was I would get all sorts of answers:

Charlie Brown told us that it's "finding a pencil", "two kinds of ice cream", "climbing a tree"
The Dalia Lama states that Happiness is a state of mind- well, that makes it individualistic, that's for sure.
I doubt that happiness is having all the money in the world, I know people who are poorer than many of us can imagine, yet their outsides shout "I am happy"...but who knows what their insides shout.  And the old saying goes that money CAN'T buy us happiness, or in other words "Mo' money, Mo' Problems".

As you can see, I have been thinking a lot about happiness, and mostly why I am "not".  I have a wonderful new husband who I love and adore and who loves and adores me.  I have several great friends and am not often "lonely". I have a job that pays well, for a wonderful company.  In this day and age, I don't have a lot to complain about.  But should we be happy by default?  Should we happy because the world tells us we should?

I have always had these grandiose dreams of what I am going to become, what I am destined to become and the truth is...my job is just not that exciting....It that really just adulthood setting in?  I'm not going to be a writer/sewer/designer....I didn't go to school for any of these things, so i don't know what i thought it would be that way.  I am starting to learn that I really don't like people all that much (I don't mean YOU of course), but gee whiz, people are hard to manage...especially when I have such high expectations of myself and those around me.  As Bing Crosby so elegantly put it, if you put someone on a white horse "they are bound to fall off once in a while", and my knights on white horses fall off alot...as do I.  and when I fall off, that's when I really get lost.

So, are you sick of hearing me wallow...because I certainly am...and the way I see it, no one can fix this but me.  So, 2012 is the year of self help.  I just purchased "The Happiness Project" and I can't wait to start helping myself be the happy person I used to be.