The key to happiness...know who you are!

A few years ago I stumbled across the book "The Happiness Project" and thought it was the perfect find. I was going through a bit of personal turmoil and I looked at that book as my guidebook to complete and utter happiness. Little did I know that things would get much worse in the personal turmoil department and the book would get set aside while I struggled with just surviving life.

Now, years later, I have been thinking about where I left off in the "project" that would consume far too many of my waking hours and (perhaps) a few of the non-waking hours as well.

(It might be important to note that I have a tendency to chase shiny objects, i.e. distractions, on a fairly regular basis...let's call them squirrels, yes, squirrels with shiny collars. So, I apologize if I sometimes ramble and get off track, but consider yourself warned!)

So, back to the "project". One of the assignments early on was to create your list of commandments, your rules of engagement. I think the goal was to get to a list of 10 or 12. I got 1. Yes, 1. And I got stuck there...for the last 2 years. You might be wondering what could be so difficult about this that I would get stuck on the first one...well, #1 is "Be Shelle". Sounds kind of simple. I mean it's only 2 words for pete's sake. And you'd think in my 40+ years I'd have at least some idea who I am. I mean, really? Well, I didn't. Guessing I still don't because I was recently challenged to work on "identity". Grrr. Part of me wants to point out that "what you see is what you get" but that seems kind of shallow. I don't think I'm shallow.

So, I am back to working on my first commandment of "Be Shelle" and hopefully that includes discovering my identity along the way. I have a feeling this is going to be a bumpy ride. 

Happiness is a journey...not a destination

I haven't posted on this happiness blog in a while so I thought today might be a good day. Not because I've finally found that elusive "happy place" but because I may finally be figuring out where to look. There's a saying I like..."if it is meant to be, it is up to me". I think happiness is the same way, if I am meant to be happy, it is up to me to make it so.

The challenge, for me, seems to lie in letting outside influences have a heavy, well, influence on my happiness quotient. Actually, I don't think I am alone in that. I think it is really easy to jump out of bed in the morning ready to take on the day only to have your kids pick a fight, traffic be a nightmare on the drive to work, coworkers be difficult, the list can go on and on. All of these things can, and usually do, have an impact on your happiness. It's hard to be happy when the world seems to be conspiring against you right? However, when you give others the power to "make" you anything (happy, sad, angry, etc.) you are giving up your own power. Only you can change that. I believe if you spend more time focusing on what you have influence on rather than on what you have no control over then you can start to shift your happiness quotient to the positive side of the scale. It's hard to measure happiness because it is a feeling, but you know it when you feel it so let that be your guide.

Have you ever thought about what your superpower is or would be if you had one? I think I'd like for my superpower to be "happiness generator". I could totally love that superpower! I believe that doing good things for others can (and does) increase your own happiness. So I am going to practice this for the next month...or year...or even lifetime, by doing something good for someone else every day. I think it may be important to look inside ourselves for happiness and that may include generating it for others as well.

It might also be important to think of happiness not as a destination, but as a journey? I believe a journey looks more like a squiggly line in the end, not a straight line. If happiness looks like that it probably has a lot of ups and downs, twists and turns. I've always believed that everything happens for a reason so perhaps the "not so good" times exist so that we can better appreciate those really good times. And when the good times come along...enjoy them! Live in the present. Don't let past regrets or future fears steal the present from you. Enjoy the good moments, celebrate the great moments and move on from the rest!!