photo by {link:http://www.flickr.com/photos/iloveblue/3841443416/}Scarleth White{/link}
I have my friend Kaley to thank for the inspiration for this post. She wrote about finding happiness in the mundane a few days ago on her blog (she has a great blog; you should check it out), and it got me thinking. Save the jokes; there was no smoke coming out of my ears at ANY point, and my brain did NOT, in fact, melt. But I did do some thinking, and this is what I came up with.
First of all, happiness is a choice. Maybe not so much for those of us who suffer from depression, when we’re right in the middle of it and everything looks black. But, when things are mentally working as they should, you can choose whether to be happy or to be miserable. Now, you don’t have to be happy about everything, and you’re perfectly within your rights to get royally pissed off from time to time. But remember those are choices you make; anger, sadness, and happiness are not automatic beyond the first few seconds. After the initial knee-jerk reaction, you continue the feeling, or change it, by how you think about what happened. Practicing positive thinking is great for training yourself to be happier.
Beyond that, happiness is something we have to work for. Sometimes, when things are really bad in our lives, we have to work really hard for it. It doesn’t simply happen to us. We can’t just sit on the couch, staring at the ceiling, and wait for it to come knock on the door like the Publisher’s Clearinghouse. It doesn’t work that way. You have to do things that make you happy, you have to look for reasons to be happy, and when you find something in your life that makes you unhappy you have to change it.
Do you take responsibility for your own happiness, or do you leave it for others to provide you? What makes you happy? Are you usually happy, or not? Why?
Related posts:
I spent most of my life not happy, and to compound it I blamed others for my own unhappiness. I was also jealous of those people who seemed to be happy ALL the time, no matter what the situation was. Then I began treatment for my depression and things began to change. My therapist gave me some homework. It was actually my first home work assignment from her. Every time I encountered a negative situation or event, I HAD to look for at least three positive things about it. It was so darn hard at first. Then I noticed something, after a while it had become such a habit that I no longer had to work at finding the positive. Furthermore, I was happy. I became one of THOSE people, who could be happy no matter what the situation was.
Sure, I have days where I am down or my physical health wins for the day, but I am still happy. I started demanding, in a nice way, that the people around me maintain positive attitudes, and even my daughter and husband are happier too. We ALL look for positive things now.
That’s great that you found a way to make yourself and your family happier. I try to do this, and sometimes I’m more successful than others. This is a good reminder for me to keep at it and keep trying. I try to do this, and I AM getting better at it and am happier overall. Maybe I’ll start demanding this from my husband, too. Thanks!
[...] Self-pity is only a problem when you don’t do anything about it. Then, it festers and leads to negativity and unhappiness. [...]