on deciding to be happy

Sometimes happiness needs a little help, a nudge.

Which seems strange. It seems counter-intuitive; that happiness should just come naturally.

But we've all been there, haven't we? We all get too settled in our routine, too much in our heads, too wrapped up in the fantasy that has been sold to us; what we *should* feel.

Life is messy, life is not always rainbows and fairy tales, as much as movies would make us believe, as much as any of us would like to believe.

We cannot be happy all the time.

I mean, obviously that is the goal. The goal is to find the things that make us absolutely, unbelievably, ridiculously happy and surround ourselves with those things and do them all the time. Then our life would be complete, right?

The truth is, that sometimes there isnt some grand reason for our feeling unhappy. That maybe we just havent had enough sleep, or too much to drink, or not enough exercise, or the weather is really affecting us. Maybe we really are feeling unfulfilled and unworthy. Those are definite reasons to feel a lack of happiness. And definitely reasons to seek out solutions to find that happiness. Absolutely.

But is the lack of fulfillment and worthiness really a reason to be *unhappy?*

The goal, really, should be to find the happiness in everyday, regardless of your external circumstances. To be happy DESPITE the reasons not to be.

I have always considered myself a very naturally happy person. Not much affects my internal feeling of happiness.

Just recently, this past year, I have found myself feeling more and more unhappy on a more consistent basis. (Which then makes me even more unhappy that I am no longer the perpetually happy person I thought I was.)

This year has brought a lot of changes, endless introspection, heartache, and a continuation of seemingly never-ending soul-searching (with no inkling of "soul-finding" on the horizon). Add to that list the fact that this restless individual has been "resting" for far too long and there are sure to be feelings of unhappiness.

I'm not happy with my current situation in most ways. I'm not happy with my job, my lack of knowledge of a "dream job" or what I really want to do, with my life or even with the next year, Im not happy to be living at home, Im not happy to feel alone (again for the first time in my life), feeling just lost without knowing the first step to take to find my way... and feeling like Ive been feeling that way for far too long and sick of it.

And because of all of that, I feel even more unhappy to be doing this, this "dead-end" ___

I've have been taking it out on the kids. it has been getting to me much more than normal.

Part of it, sure, is the weather, the long, dark, dreary winter that seems to have sucked all my energy out of me. But a lot of it, also, is the fact that I am just not happy with what Im doing.

And I think that's ok to say. that Im not happy.

So many times, I just gloss over it. yeah, I'm fine... almost as if Im trying to convince myself, that if I tell myself Im ok, I will be. but I think it's ok to say youre not happy.

That's how you can make the changes to bring yourself to something else.

But it's also hard when youve admitted that youre not happy, and identified the fact that you need to make some changes, but are stuck in your current commitments.

But you know what else? There's no reason why you can't enjoy where you are at the moment, even though you're not fully happy with the circumstances.

It doesnt mean that you love what youre doing and want to stay doing it forever, it just means that you are living in the present and not letting youreslf fall into a darker, more unhappy place than you need to.