At the risk of sounding like your mother, I’m going to share this with you…..
I read a quote awhile back. The kind that hit home-in a good way and just made me happy deep down inside. I have no idea where I saw it, (on my phone somewhere, no doubt) or who said it, or even how it was said, but the jist of it was, that if you really want to be happy, you’ll need to find it in the small, un-spectacular, everyday things. You know…happy in the here and now. We can’t wait for the BIG things to make us happy.
I GET that! Just think how LOVELY it is to sit with a warm cup on a chilly morning, how wonderful a warm slice of bread, fresh out of the oven is, how fun it is to find a funny shaped piece of popcorn, how gooood it feels to get into a freshly made bed at night. The list goes on and on! The LITTLE things!
Even in the things that don’t SEEM wonderful, if we LOOK, we can find the “Happy” there!
If we wait for the BIG things to make us happy, we could be waiting a LONG time. Big things like getting the perfect job, going on a week long vacation, having the house of your dreams….you get the picture. Some of those things take a LONG time to ever come into our lives, if they ever do. Do we want to wait THAT long to be happy?
Happy Comes Under Different Titles
CONTENT
Sometimes happy is called being CONTENT. We can be content–even in the chaos of life! Raising a family is chaotic, at times…..messy, loud. It will pass more quickly than you can imagine! The days are long, but the years are short! Roll with it, and ENJOY!
We can be content with “simple”….no need to be keeping up with all the photos on the internet! Simple is good!
We live in a house that was built in 1925. That’s 100 years old! It is not fancy or new fangled. It has a multitude of quirks, and things that could be better, BUT I love it!! It is HOME! If I go to comparing, and thinking I need to keep up with the Joneses or the houses I see on Pinterest, or thinking about how we could do this and that….when I know it’s not feasible money wise, well, there goes my happy… there goes my contentedness…
PERSEVERANCE
Sometimes happy is called PERSEVERANCE……that bean row is LONG, but just pick one handful at a time…just pick another bean…and another…and another…and before you know it, you’re at the end! Those thousand weeds that grew overnight? Same thing! Just pick one weed…then another, then another…….and before you know it, you’re finished! You get the picture! Not without sweat, not even fun maybe, but you made it!!
And, while you were at it, did you notice that long ant train, weaving it’s way up and over and around obstacles in it’s way. Did you notice the bean that is shaped in a perfect heart? THAT is how you find your happy–notice the small insignificant things that we usually miss, because we are in too big of a hurry, or because we’re too busy being out of sorts because things aren’t exactly how we want them!!
Finding the GOOD
Sometimes it’s called finding the GOOD, looking for the positive, in common everyday life, or even a bad experience. Try looking at the rainbow, instead of the mud. Just knowing that whatever job that we’re working at, or chore that needs done or even situations we find ourselves in, there are ALWAYS good parts…positive parts, that if we focus on those, we find it’s not so bad after all!
This hail storm begs to defy the “look for the good” mind set! We lost, and had to replace LOTS of windows, siding and roofs–in the house and the all of the outbuildings….because of 10 minutes of fury. The aftermath looked like a tornado had gone through. You’ve never seen so much broken glass!
BUT, here’s the “happy”! We DID get new windows, which we needed, and we are soon to get new siding and roof, which we also needed, in a bad way–the storm just spurred us on to action!!
Our trees got pruned, my flowers and garden were demolished…. BUT, the flowers eventually kind of grew out of it, and they’ll come again this year. We’ll plant another garden this year–it helped us clean out our freezer, so we can start with all fresh veggies! So, all is not lost!
Disclaimer: I KNOW that it could have been worse! It WASN’T a tornado, or a flood, or a fire….and I’m thankful for that. I am also very sorry for the ones who DO have tornados, fires and floods!
Remember those beans that took you SO long to pick? Now they need snapped. You could DREAD it and whine your way through the huge pile, or you can enjoy the process…find the funny beans, see what you can spell with them, if someone is helping you, tell funny stories on each other. It’s all in how we LOOK at things! Look for the happy! BE the happy!
Go enjoy the NOW! Notice the small things. Find your happy, and tell me in the comments, what do you do to find your happy?
Thanks for coming, lets do it again!
Good Thoughts
“A good day ain’t made of big things, just a bunch of little good ones stacked together.” Anonymous
