I giggle.
I work hard to make others giggle.
I dream…and enjoy analyzing my dreams.
I engage on social media.
I innovate (at work)
I create (at home)
I write.
I share my writing with others.
I bake cookies.
I surprise the people I love with small treats or notes.
I want to be around people.
I want to know them.
I want to learn more about them.
I want to discover what we have in common and how we can help each other.
I sing.
I kiss my husband.
I take beautiful pictures.
Or silly ones.
This isn’t a list of the things that make me happy.
It’s a list of ways I know that I am happy.
That life is working for me.
These are ways I know I am doing what is required to care for myself so that my life is one I enjoy … or, at least, feel reasonably satisfied by.
Often times, we think — if we think at all — about the things that make us happy.
Ice cream.
Sex.
Vacation.
Money.
Baseball.
Air conditioning.
We make mental or actual lists of all the things we need in our life in order to be happy. Or we delineate end goals or possessions we are convinced will make us happier if only we reach them or one day have them.
Better job.
Better wife.
A baby.
Older kids.
A degree.
More sleep.
More quiet.
Less stress.
And while some of us are good at being grateful for what we have– and even acknowledging the good in our life — I don’t often hear from my inner voice listing off the ways I know I am happy now.
Right now.
Or what happy looked like back when it colored my life.
What does happy look like?
Who are you when you’re happy?
If we don’t know what happy looks like, how will we ever get there?
I’ve noticed over the past few weeks that my happy evidence is somewhat missing from the scene.
This was a red alert for me to DO SOMETHING.
So I started thinking about my list.
The list of things that act as evidence that I am happy.
And I started doing those things.
Even though I wasn’t yet happy.
And today, I’m happier.
(I didn’t say HAPPY.)
But
I’m writing.
I’m baking.
I’m spending time with real live human beings.
And engaging a little with the imaginary real live human beings on my screen.
What does happy look like for you?
How will you …
How do you…
recognize it?
