Looking for happiness? You are the keeper of it.
I had a good discussion on Facebook with some friends about those annoyingly happy people.
You know, those people whose lives are always perfect, and who never have anything negative to say. First I didn’t understand the discussion, because I tend to be happy and spread positivity more than anything, and thought maybe someone would think that I was one of those annoying “life is always wonderful”-people. But now I get it.
I have one of those annoyingly positive friends, and she drives me nuts. We went to eat in a restaurant, it took an hour to get our order in, another to get the food, and then the way overpriced food was just plain bad (there is no excuse for overcooked pasta in my book), service rude and slow, and even this “choose happiness” girl was furious. My friend? “This is such an amazing restaurant, just look at those pretty curtains” – curtains, seriously, curtains? Even she couldn’t find anything else positive to say than pretty curtains. There is a time and a place just to say “this (restaurant) really sucks”, and I am all for that.
However. There is a but. (There is always a but…)
But I think when it comes to our own wonderful or not so wonderful lives, we can choose happiness and positivity and change the course of our lives. And half of having a wonderful life is having horrible days – how else you could appreciate what you have?
I’ll tell you another story.
When I was pregnant with our third child, a friend of mine recommended a fortune teller. You know – to find out the sex of the child. I don’t know what I was thinking, because sonogram would have easily told that, yet I didn’t want to do that. However this
hokey pokey fortune teller idea sounded so exciting and random at the time, and I said yes.
Life wasn’t really dancing on rose petals back then; Matt was in the military, the Iraq war had just started, and I was home alone with a 2-year-old and a 10-month-old baby, expecting a third one. I guess I was hoping for a “great fortune” to spice up my day.
Who is writing your Cinderella story?
I didn’t tell anything but my birthdate and place, and off the fortune teller did her magic and told my “fortune”.
I would have a boy, and he wouldn’t be my last child.
I would have three more; twins in 2010 and a girl in 2011.
I was a bit surprised, but still all seemed good news. However, the last three children would be with a different man than my husband, continued the fortune teller. She told me that soon my husband would go to far away place, and when he got back, our marriage would never be the same, and we’d divorce. “Don’t worry” said she and continued that I would meet a rich older man, and have three more children and live happily ever after traveling around the world.
I cried my eyes out; “we are going to divorce” I said when Matt just couldn’t understand such cry “and you are going to Iraq” – that seemed like a logical explanation for the “far away place”. Go figure I was little hormonal. Being pregnant, nursing and not getting enough sleep sometimes does that to you.
Then we had a boy – of the one in two odds, the fortune teller was right.
Then Matt’s company announced they were leaving for Iraq.
Then there were days when we’d have a small fight about shoveling snow or something equally important, and I would think “ok, if this marriage won’t work, I’ll find the rich older guy”.
I realized that I was looking for cues that my life was going to the path the fortune teller told me it would.
And that’s when I decided that my life story won’t be written by anyone else but me.
Obviously I couldn’t really change a lot of the things, but I changed my attitude. I decided that even if Matt would go to Iraq, even if life would throw me lemons, I would keep making lemonade. I would be the keeper of my happiness. Maybe I prayed a little too, I don’t know.
For some very weird reason, Matt didn’t go to Iraq. He was accepted to a military course in Virginia, and our entire family moved there for a while and lived on the beach, while the rest of Matt’s company went to Iraq.
It’s 2010 now, I am not having twins this year, and I am still happily married to my younger not-so-rich guy. Because I chose so.
I truly believe that if we let negativity to take over, it will. If we believe life sucks, it will. And the other way around. We can choose happiness, we can choose to find the silver lining without being that annoyingly positive person, who can’t be authentic and honest. We can write our own life stories even if we can not control life.
Half of being happy is choosing to be happy.
