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.