What have I learned about happiness in 30 years? That it is not fixed, but that it is something that you should be constantly striving for. I don’t negate the times in my life when I have struggled and they have taught me something, because it makes the good times that much better, but if you are living your life in a general state of unhappiness, why not work to change that?
I realize many may say that some can’t change their circumstances and that is true, but you can make small changes in your environment, the people you are around, and the way you speak to yourself that can make all the difference in your happiness on a daily basis.
You can change the metrics for how you look at your life, how you measure how you are doing. Are you measuring success by titles, degrees, status and money, or by relationships, health and happiness?
These things matter.
I am not happy every single day now. But my general happiness meter is much much higher than it used to be. I work hard to ensure that it is. If I am not happy in a situation, I evaluate why and I adjust. I move, I journal and take a look at my thoughts. My life is worth enough to me to make sure that I am actually living it—that is the genuine difference between now and several years ago. I want to live, I want to experience life and if that is the case, I want to be happy doing it. I don’t see any point in spending 70-80 years on this earth miserable and spreading that misery on others. So happiness is my key metric now. It took deep depths of unhappiness to see how important that is, but I’ve resolved to make myself happy for the rest of my life, and through that, share love with others.
(For those who don’t know… I am doing “30 days to 30” and sharing life lessons and stories in order to celebrate my birthday—hoping to break stigmas and stereotypes about what 30 means and looks like)
