Nothing will make you happy. It is not anyone else’s job to make you happy.
In the words of Ralph Marston: “No person will make you happy unless you decide to be happy. Your happiness will not come to you. It can only come from you.”
That’s probably not very good news if you are insisting on blaming your unhappiness on anyone or anything but you.
But consider the opposite view of this…you don’t have to wait on anyone or anything before you can be happy. You only have to decide to be happy; and that’s very good news.
The question then becomes, how exactly do you do that?
Here’s how I do it…I look around my world and find something that feels good and gives me a little jolt of happiness. Here are a few things from today:
· Watching Cooper run at full speed; it really is a thing of beauty,
· Walking and finding it warm enough to undo my coat and take off my gloves, in February, in Toronto,
· Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror and noticing how nice the colour purple looks on me,
· Finding exactly the item I was looking for at the grocery store,
· Seeing a picture that really made me laugh,
· Being able to take an afternoon nap,
· Seeing my floors all vacuumed and steamed.
You get the idea. None of these things are big, life-altering things and yet in the noticing and celebrating of these small things, I find myself happy in the moment. When I string a bunch of those moments together, I am happy.
Try this ONE thing
What can you start noticing and celebrating to make yourself happy? I’ll bet there are lots of things, and I’d love to hear.
More importantly, I’d love for you to start and keep noticing those tiny seeds of happiness that are all around me. And just like that, you’re making the choice to be happy.
Check out my story on my website, Karen Laidlaw the ONE Thing. And you’ll find lots of good freebies there too.