Choose Happiness

Happy 2016!  How did you ring in the new year?  I'll be honest, I was in bed well before midnight so I was sleeping and trying to finish getting over this dang cold that's taken over my life for the last couple of weeks.

It might sound cliche, but I truly love the idea of new beginnings.  Have you ever had a day that seemed to be going all wrong, only to make a conscious decision to "start over"?  Or going to bed grumpy and waking up to see the sun shining and you have a smile on your face before you get out of bed?  I love knowing that while I might not have control over how everything in my day goes, that I do have control over how I react to it.  And isn't that half the battle?

Earlier this week I talked about a few of my new goals for the year, but I thought of one more that I wanted to mention: choose to be happy.  This goal stems from the memory of a time during junior high when my life at home was challenging due to circumstances out of my control.  Rather than focus on the negative, I made a valiant effort every day to see the good in the bad.  It didn't change my circumstances, but it made them easier to deal with.  I came to be known as someone who (almost) always had a smile on her face and could help others see the good in things.

As I've gotten older and life has moved forward, I find that there are days I tend to get caught up in "the thick of thin things": small irritations turn into big problems and it seems hard to find the positive when I'm already having a tough day.  But I want to make a bigger effort to catch myself when this happens and try harder to choose to be happy.  I want to create a new beginning for myself, no matter what time of day it is or how rough the day before was.

Life is hard.  But it becomes so much harder when we don't choose to be happy.  So regardless of what other new goals you've set for yourself this year, I hope you'll join me in the effort to choose happiness. You won't regret it.