Thinking...

I've been thinking a lot the past few days, about many things. Wondering about life and the many things that come our way that are unexpected. I've often thought about happiness, and what causes it. Is happiness chosen or the product of circumstance? I would like to believe that I can choose to be happy all the time, but I don't think it works that way. I do believe that we have a choice of how to react to our circumstances and the situations we find ourselves in, but I don't believe that happiness is always the right choice in a reaction. Obviously when painful situations come along, we cannot be expected to laugh or smile it off. I don't mean to sound pessimistic, I'm just writing down my thoughts. Though it may seem contradictory to my previous statment, I believe that happiness is a state of mind and not a state of being (not necessarily circumstance), but not necessarily a state that you can choose. I can choose to be content, and accept my life the way that it is, but I cannot neccesarily choose to be happy. However; through being content I can find happiness. Happiness happens when we choose to accept that which we have been given. Many may disagree with me, and I may not be making any sense, but there is my theory.

I told Ryan the other day that I don't want to wish my life away, and I think it is so easy to do that. It's easy to say, "I wish I had this, I wish I had that, and then I would be happy". I've learned that recieving everything you want, or think you want, does not bring happiness. I've known fairly wealthy people who are always stressed about money, and I've known relatively poor people who do just fine with what they have. So with that knowledge I know that happiness is not a state of being, there is no circumstance in this world that can guarantee happiness.

Something else that I know is that we see what we want to see, or what we focus on. I can choose to look at everything that is going wrong in my life, then the negative becomes the focus and all the good will become blurry. Once you set that focus, that is what you will see. For some reason it seems that the negative is always easier to focus on. However; I can also choose to see the positive, and then the negative will slowly begin to blur. The negative and the positive are always going to be there, but the reality is that you have to choose which one matters to you.

Several years ago, when I was going through a particularly hard time for me I made a decision, one that I often look back on and remind myself of. I went to the store and bought the tiniest notepad I could find, and I took a pen and cut it in half so it would fit comfortably in my pocket. I carried the notebook and pen with me everywhere I went and every time I thought of something, saw something or heard something that brought even the slightest sense of joy I wrote it down. From the view of a beautiful sunset to the fleeting realization that I was loved, I would write it down. At first it was difficult, I was so caught up in my misery that it seemed everything was painted in grey, but after a while suddenly everything was wonderful. Every leaf on the trees on my way to class made me smile, every cloud in the sky became beautiful, every thought became happy. After a while I became so busy writing those happy moments down that in a funny way it became tedious. I filled 2 notebooks within a couple of months, and I was happy.

I believe that we all have reasons to be happy, but it is not as simple as just deciding that you are going to be happy. It is a process of many other decisions and refocusing the lense in your brain to truly reach that, and it is a constant process, because it is so easy to become unfocused again. I must remind myself daily of the little things that makes life meaningful and potentially happy. I hope that if you took the time to read this I did not bore you, or that you don't disagree with me too strongly. I hope that I have left you...Happy :)

Happy fishy!