I Choose Happiness (Just Because!)
Happiness is always a choice. We always have the power to choose it.
Today, my friend and best-selling publisher Linda Joy officially releases her new bookInspiration for a Woman’s Soul: Choosing Happiness.
In it are inspiring stories from 27 amazing women (many of whom I know, personally). It also includes thought-provoking reflection questions and prompts. In celebration of its release, for a limited time, purchase of the book comes with over 40 transformational gifts. Grab the book here today: http://bit.ly/Happiness_Book
The anticipation of the book release got me mulling over the idea, or I should say “the ideal” of happiness.
“Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”
~ Abraham Lincoln.
Dear old Abe: Is this a challenge? Admonition? Invitation?
I choose “invitation.” And I choose “happiness.”
Now, I’m not saying I choose it all the time and every day but I do find strength in knowing that I have that choice at any moment. Now, certainly events, experiences, even predispositions can make this more difficult at some times more than others. However, I have a role in this performance called my life and it’s not just a supporting actress role.
I, as all of us, have experienced great sadness and I’m not suggesting we should just pull ourselves up by the bootstraps in those instances. I must say though, that even at its worst (and who can say whose worst is worse?) I know in the recesses of my mind that there is a tiny, almost infinitesimal glimmer that hope and happiness will come again – just not right now. And so I choose to feel my feelings and go to the depths of sadness, like racing toward a cold, ever-dimming bottom of the sea with an occasional glance up at the water’s surface where I know the sun is still shining, even as it becomes harder to see.
In order to choose happiness, we must also choose sadness and all the other feelings in between. Or perhaps they are choosing us and we allow them to run their course. They each serve a purpose, whether to protect, inspire or simply remind us that we feel and, therefore, we “are.” And so it is, then, that:
- I choose anger to give me the strength to protect myself when my boundaries are breeched.
- I choose guilt to grow my empathy for those I have wronged.
- I choose shame to learn healthy coping mechanisms so that I don’t stay there long or return.
- I choose sadness so that when it is felt all the way through and begins to fade,
- I can, once again, choose happiness.
How about you? Do you dabble in the palette of feelings so that, in the end, you, too, can choose happiness? Please share with a comment here.
And, before you go, choose happiness by ordering publisher Linda Joy’s Inspiration for a Woman’s Soul: Choosing Happiness today http://bit.ly/Happiness_Book and get bonus gifts from over 40 visionary women (for a limited time only.)
