Why Stop at Half-Full When You Can Go All the Way?

Happiness is a warm gun -The Beatles

Happiness is.. a plate of cookies and glass of milk-everybody on earth

Happiness is a good book, warm cup of tea, soft cat, and rainy day. -Jackie (my awesome coworker)

If you google "happiness is" and go to images, there are about a thousand little things like this all with different ideas as to what happiness is.

And something I've noticed today is that happiness has a different meaning for everybody. 

Happiness to Barney Stinson, Neil Patrick Harris's character on How I Met Your Mother, is a vulnerable, drunk, attractive girl at MacLaren's Pub. 

For me, happiness mostly consists of these two things: 

My man and my cat.  Not that they're the only things that make me happy- a lot of other things do too.  Chocolate.  Bubble baths.  Back massages. Birds. Naps. Food. Lots and lots of food.  Beaches.

But the thing I've learned is that you have to make your own happiness.  You have to make the executive decision to be happy or fake it till you make it.  No one can give happiness to you. That would be nice, though.  I think I would just give jars of happiness as Christmas presents every year.  When I'm with Blake, I'm not just magically under a happy spell.  I can still decide if I choose to let things like getting a splinter ruin my day.  

When our tire went flat (thanks nails!) on our honeymoon, we were sad..

But we didn't let that ruin our night! We still went out and had  a good time :)

I like to think I'm usually pretty happy.  But a while back, B noticed I was even happier when I would take time out to do things for myself.  While we were planning the wedding I was getting stressed trying to balance planning with school and work and not having bridal breakdowns every time one of the thousands of bumps in the road gave us a flat tire. 

So, I started trying to learn French.  I'm not doing anything fancy like Rosetta Stone or taking a class, just using the free website Duolingo to learn the absolute basics.  It's fun, and gives me goals.  Plus, it's something I've wanted to do- I set a goal back when I was in high school to learn French and then I would reward myself with a trip to Paris.

Don't you already feel happier just looking at this picture? I know I do!

Setting goals is a great way to find happiness.  Goals encourage us to break out of our shells and experience things we wouldn't normally get to do.

Right now, my biggest goal is working on this blog.  I want it to be successful, and since that's one of my main goals, it's not hard to put aside a little time every day to work on it.  Sometimes it's hard deciding what to talk about for the day and sometimes I wonder if what I'm saying is actually affecting people or if people even actually like it at all.  But when I start to think about giving up, Blake reminds me that I like doing it and it makes me happy. 

I love to read self-help books.  Especially ones about relationships. (Go figure, the girl writing about relationships likes to read about relationships!)  One common theme I've found in some of the books I've read is making the list of good things.  Some say to make it especially about your SO.  Some say to do blessings you've received.  But they all agree that making these lists help you be happier, have better relationships, and be more appreciative of the good times.

I've decided that I'm going to start a list.  My list for today would look a little something like this: (Keep in mind, it's only 8:00 am. It's so short because really nothing has happened so far, just work..)

Masterfully done for you in my favorite computer program, Paint!

So even though we had to wake up before the butt crack of dawn, (I would estimate we woke up at the belly button of dawn) and I have to work all day, just making that list makes it hard to dwell on the negatives, when, to quote Lady Natasha, "There's so many beautiful reasons I have to be happy"