My Experience: Dani is the author of Positively Present. Positively Present focuses on all things positive -- quotes, books, stories, songs, situations, people, blogs, websites, ideas, images, notions, emotions. Anything and everything positive has a home here. Check out http://www.positivelypresent.com/ for more.
Description:
There was a time
I packed my dreams away
Living in a shell
hiding from myself
There was a time
when I was so afraid
I thought I'd reached the end
But, baby, that was then
I am made of more
than my yesterdays

This is my now
I'm breathing in the moment
As I look around
Can't believe the love I see
My fears behind me
Gone are shadows of doubt
That was then
This is my now

I have courage
like never before
I've settled for less
Now I'm ready for more
Ready for more

This is my now
I'm breathing in the moment
As I look around
Can't believe the love I see
My fears behind me
Gone are shadows of doubt
That was then
This is my now

Jordin Sparks

A little while back, in the post "the lucky number seven" (see #5), I mentioned that I was working on an art project. After gathering all of those images of happy people and pasting them to a canvas, adding my favorite phrase "live happily ever now," I've finally completed the project. I feel great about it and I really think it's a great thing to wake up to every morning (it's hanging across from my bed so it's the first thing I see when I open my eyes!). Looking at the large canvas hanging on the wall cluttered with images of happy smiling people certainly makes it a lot easier for me to choose happiness every morning (though I will admit that today, with its low hanging clouds and gloomy attitude, it wasn't all that easy!). Every morning I'm striving to say my new mantra when I wake. After opening my eyes, I say to myself, "Today I choose to be happy." Sounds simple enough, but it's not always. Sometimes I want to say, "I choose to be a real bitch" or "I choose to be in a mood so bad that no one around me can be happy." But I don't. Not anymore.

Happiness is a choice. Why am I so certain about this? How can I say this with such certainty? Because I'm living proof of this statement. Every day I face unhappiness. I am naturally prone to it. I veer toward the negative side of life and then I take hold of the wheel and say to myself, "No! Today I choose to be happy." I make the choice every day not to venture down that old path, the path of sadness and loneliness and depressive thoughts that kept me from being the person I always wanted to be. Some days it's not an easy choice. Some days it feels like it's the hardest choice I've ever had to make. But at the end of the day I am always, always thankful that I chose the happier path.

When I was a kid, I used to think there was such a thing has "happily ever after." I used to think I would grow up, become a famous writer (or the editor of Vogueas I often dreamed about), live in an amazing Manhattan apartment with my amazing and loving husband, and have so much money I couldn't stand it. I imagined myself blissfully happy, busy and fulfilled, my life filled with friends and parties and all of the beautiful clothes I could ever want (after all, the editor of Vogue does get all of the latest and greatest fashions, right?). To me, that was the fairy tale life -- the man, the career, the happiness (am I a baby of the '80s or what?!). I thought I would have it all and I thought that all I had to do was work hard and look pretty and it would all fall into place.

But these are dreams of childhood, and, as we all know, they don't last forever. When I was in middle school I started to doubt real life dreams. I cannot tell you how many times I've read in my journals over the past week or so, "Dreams don't come true! They don't!" I was angry and bitter at my discovery that the world wasn't all fantastic and perfect and magical. This place I was in wasn't the animated set of a Disney film. This was real life and I wasn't quite sure I was down with it.

I believed in the possibility of happiness (there was still a bit of hope in those old journals), but I wasn't quite sure where happiness came from. Could I buy it? (That didn't seem to work.) Could I blame the lack of it on society? (That didn't work either.) Could I look for it other people? (That didn't work and, in fact, seemed to bring about more despair and doubt.) Could I move away and find it? (That didn't pan out so well either.) Could I alter my mind with drugs and alcohol to find it? (That also brought about more unhappiness.) Could I research it? (That wasn't a bad idea but it still didn't really work.) How in the world, I wondered, could I find this elusive happiness?

Years and years and years of searching have brought me to the happily ever after that I find myself in now. No, I'm not working for Vogue (though I'd still love to -- call me, Vogue!). No, I'm not married to the man of my dreams (and actually have no desire to be married). No, I don't live in Manhattan in a fabulous apartment (but I do have a pretty decent one near the great city of DC). I am not living a "dream" life, but I do believe I've managed to achieve one goal -- and it is the most important goal of all -- being happy.

Right now I am living in my happily ever after. It's not someday. It's not with someone else. It's not when I have my dream job (yes, I know I will someday!). It's RIGHT NOW. This is my happily ever after. This is, as Jordin Sparks sings, my now. I can choose to love it, to be happy in it, to consider this my happily ever after. Or I can be miserable. Which would you choose if you were given the choice? Oh, wait, you are given the choice! You are no different than me. You can wake every day and choose to be happy. Yes, you can! C'mon, you know you want to...Okay, so you want to, but you don't know how? Don't worry! I just came across some strategies for choosing happiness over on Oprah's website. (I love that site!) Here are the strategies:


How to Live Happily Ever After NOW

(Thanks, Oprah's website!)

Don't worry, choose happy. The best way to choose happiness is to be aware of what's going on in your mind. We have the ability to thwart "negative emotions such as pessimism, resentment and anger. And we can foster positive emotions, such as empathy, serenity, and especially gratitude." Though many say we all have a set level of happiness, you can decide to be happier by looking at your mind and understanding where the negative and positive emotions lie. You can choose which ones to focus on (not easy, but definitely possible!).

Cultivate gratitude. If you focus on being grateful for what you have, you're a lot more likely to be happy. After all, if you're focusing on what you do have, rather than what you don't have, you're shifting your attention to the positive. One bit of advice that I like (and is very similar to my happy list idea) is to list the things you are grateful for every day. "This shifts people away from bitterness and despair [says author of Authentic Happiness, Martin Segilman] and promotes happiness." Give it a try -- it's a great way to choose happiness!

Foster forgiveness. I love this advice: "In his book, Five Steps to Forgiveness, Everett Worthington Jr. offers a five-step process he calls REACH. First, Recall the hurt. Then Empathize and try to understand the act from the perpetrator's point of view. Be Altruistic by recalling a time in your life when you were forgiven. Commit to putting your forgiveness into words. You can do this either in a letter to the person you're forgiving or in your journal. Finally, try to Hold on to the forgiveness. Don't dwell on your anger, hurt, and desire for vengeance."

Counteract negative thoughts. John Haidt, author of The Happiness Hypothesis, compares the human mind to the concept of riding an elephant. "The elephant represents the powerful thoughts and feelings—mostly unconscious—that drive your behavior. The man, although much weaker, can exert control over the elephant, just as you can exert control over negative thoughts and feelings." Sometimes the elephant is strong and you can't control her as easily, but, ultimately, you are the one in control of learning how to overcome negativity.

Remember $ can't buy happiness. It's no surprise to me that "once income climbs above the poverty level, more money brings very little extra happiness." We often look for new things to buy if the ones we have aren't making us happy, instead of realizing that it's not things that bring happiness at all. We choose to be happy. Nothing (no thing) can do that for us.

Foster friendship. We all know it, but I'll quote the article here: "There are few better antidotes to unhappiness than close friendships with people who care about you." So choose happiness by choosing to spend time with your friends (and, no, online time doesn't count according to the article). The best way to make and keep lasting friendships, I've found, is to be yourself. Be you and the the friends with find you.

Engage in meaningful activities. Like reading Positively Present! Okay, maybe that's not exactly what the article meant, but apparently we are "seldom happier...than when we're in 'the flow,' [which] is a state in which your mind becomes thoroughly absorbed in a meaningful task that challenges your abilities." So find something meaningful to you and absorb yourself in it. (This definitely works for me in relation to writing/blogging. I am so happy when I'm in the zone, totally focused on what I'm doing.)

I'm pretty sure all of these are great ideas for choosing to live happily ever right now. If you want to read the full article (and you should!), you can check it out on Oprah's site here. And if you want to distract yourself even further from your job/kids/etc., take the "How Happy Are You?" test on the site. (I scored a 26, which means I'm not completely satisfied with my life, but I'm not dissatisfied either...hmm...looks like I have some work to do...).

If you take one thing away from this (long, long) post, I would like it to be this: You can choose to live happily ever after right now. You don't need anything or anyone else to do this. There is no perfect time. There is no happily ever after in the future somewhere. There is now. And there is happy. And you can have happiness right now. You deserve it. So, go on, choose to be happy!