BE HAPPY

"The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things."

- Henry Ward Beecher

I'm not exactly sure where this post is going to go, but I'll just start it from why I even wanted to write about it. Today when I was at work, everybody just seemed so down and negative and angry for a reason unknown to me. Maybe someone close to them died. Maybe they're having their own issues at home. Or maybe they just felt like being in a bad mood because that's the way they felt today.

I, however, was not in that type of mood today. I was in a happy mood, ready and excited to be at work, ready to engage with people. I went around saying things like, "Everybody stay positive today!" or "Just be happy! There is always something to be thankful for." And although I was just trying to lift everybody's spirits, I got to thinking about it, and it's true, there really is always something to be thankful for...

In this generation it's easy to get caught up in the what and the who of everything that we do. It's so easy to compare yourself to other people, thinking that you're not good enough or that if only you had a little bit more money then you would be as popular and cool as somebody else. I'm not saying I'm not guilty of this, because I am...probably more than I'm willing to admit, but I'm saying that it is so unbelievably sad that this is the world we live in, and the world we are going to have to raise our kids in.

I've really started to realize that there is beauty in every single thing in this crazy, harsh world. There is beauty in God's green grass in your front yard. There is beauty in the bed that you sleep in every night. More importantly, there is beauty in the relationships that you hold with the people you love. There is beauty in the fact that you can call your parents, your brother, your sister whenever you want. There is nothing more powerful in the whole entire world than the act of receiving love and giving love, and that is what we should be focusing on, not the physical things that we think we don't have enough of. You create beauty with your attitude, your behavior, and your actions. It's all up to you.

Over the past year specifically, I have started to try to appreciate the little things and not to focus so much on the things that eventually won't matter. When you are getting upset over something small, ask yourself, is it really worth it? It's probably not.

So as I thought about what I was going to say in this post, I tried to figure out the best way to explain this to people. I'm not telling you that you're not allowed to have bad days. I'm not telling you that you can never wake up in a bad mood just because that's the way you feel today. I'm telling you that even on these bad days, there is something to be thankful for. Even on these bad days, there is beauty surrounding you everywhere, all you have to do it look for it. Happiness is a choice. You just have to be strong enough to choose it.

Don't know if this was depressing or uplifting, but enjoy.

Randell