Choosing Happiness

Many times in life we look for something to be happy about, or someone to be happy for, something to make us happy, someone to make us happy. It is not until the past six months or so that I realized, by realized I mean truly accepted, that in whatever life gives us and whatever we are blessed with – we must first make the choice to be happy. This goes for all the times in life that we are troubled as well.

I recently ran into some examples of this:

One friend was having some serious relationship issues that they were determined to solve. Nothing was working or if it seemed as such it was only a patch to a leaky hole, things weren’t great for this friend for a while. However, this friend and their partner decided to take action FOR each other rather than against each other – and I believe this will be their saving grace. Easy? No. Worth the choice of happiness rather than misery?  Absolutely.

Another friend found themselves out of a loved professional position – quite suddenly. Oh and add on single with mouths to feed and said mouths had just left for visitation with the other parent for the summer. I cannot imagine! My kid(s) gone for what does seem like forever, then my beloved position is now gone, I have to figure out life in it’s God given scheme as well as figure out the man-made logistics of life such as food/bills/housing. However, this friend went right to the grindstone as well as made some choices to get up and go seek God in all his beautiful glory on earth (literally hiking to some of the greatest peaks).  I believe she will be OK, not ask why, but choose life instead of desolation.

I met my younger cousin, her friends, and all their respective dogs at a local winery this past weekend and was amazed at how they were all choosing their own happiness in their mid-twenties. It used to be, graduate, have or quickly get a boyfriend, get married. I believe most of them were single, had their own places, were talking happily about their jobs, apartment homes, friends, and only a few mentions of any guy they happen to be dating during the conversations. This elated me, as you well know how my former choice (though leaving me with the intense blessing of my kiddo) turned out.  Again, making their own happiness.

In my own choice to be happy or choose happiness – not that I haven’t been blessed with some great things, my daughter, a wonderful faith-filled man, a great local best friend, a roof, a job, and a fridge full of food; I also am having some issues I do not yet know the answers too. I will be going to part time to better serve my kiddo in a few short weeks (along with the last larger paycheck), however, my filler job has yet to come about. The kiddo will celebrate a milestone in that same time span, which as a single parent always means a change in visitation time or in my case, a decision of how my daughter should adapt to said change or how said change should come about for her true best interest in the situation. This year is one of the hardest to incorporate in the latter issue and many people have opinions, yet I am the only one who decides. That is a lot of weight. However, I chose happiness even as I go through these issues – prayer, today I ran like a crazy person and was covered sweat, and texted A who happens to be 3-4 centennial states away until Saturday.  Yet, I am happy, I choose to be, and I choose to be thankful for all my blessings.