hopefully something rhetorical

On the whole, I would like to say that I am a happy person.  Some people in my life might not agree on a day-to-day basis, but I do try to be happy overall.  In other words, happiness is my goal.  I do not want to be stuck living a life where I am always upset with what is going on around me.  However, I will be quite honest that it is not always in my nature to try to see the highlight of a situation, but I do try to look for the good in things rather than focusing on the negative.  This post was a good example of me trying to do just that.

Christine Kane, someone I talk about a lot here I realize, writes about this on her blog quite a bit, about setting intentions and having a clear vision about what you want.  She calls it living consciously.  Lots of other writers and artists talk about this type of thing as well.  And, while I was driving with my best good friend the other day, we got to talking about what makes us happy.  I asked her if she could pinpoint something that makes her happy, and through our conversation, we determined that there are at least two types of happy states.

One is a giddy-happy.  You might experience this when you are laughing with friends or otherwise having a good time.  And, the other is an overall sense of being.  I would call this contentment.  I would like to think that even when you have other things going on in your life that try to pull you down, you can still be in both of these states.

I have been particularly concerned about this since our conversation because as we were driving, I could not name even one thing that makes me happy…not one.  And, since I feel that I live a fairly happy life overall, I know that there are there.  Usually, I am pretty heavy on the giddy part.  My midwest “family” and I joke around a lot, so we are always laughing.  But, I would like to do more things that let giddy lead to more of the overall contentment.  Content is a state of being that I could definitely live with.

I have also come to realize that these feelings and the events that trigger them can camouflage themselves in seemingly normal moments of my life.  And, I know that if I am not paying attention, I will miss them.  Therefore, I am setting the intention to start paying closer attention.

To do that, I am going to keep track of them as they happen using this space to help me.  I started a page above, and I am going to write these joy-inducing moments as I realize them.  I have also decided that I am going to try to focus on the small little things…the day-to-day things.  I am not going to include the boy on the list because if he didn’t make me happy, I wouldn’t be married to him.  I know that I am happy with him, but I would like to think more about why, so the moments where he drives me crazy won’t seem so important.  I am going to work on focusing on all the minute parts of my life and take notice.  It is my reaction and interaction with these moments that I would like to change.

I don’t know how long it will take me to make the list, and I don’t know how long I will keep it up, but it should be interesting to see what this endeavor reveals about me and my life.