Share some Happiness

Happy New Year to all! Welcome 2012!

I wish for you (and me) a happy and safe New Year's Eve and New Year.  I welcome 2012 with all its lessons and joys.  I hope the lessons are gentle and the joys many.

Thank you to any of you who stop by here to visit. I hope you will continue to do so. I'm looking forward to another year of WildRumpusing with you.

NaBloPoMo Prompt 18: Happiest Moment

What has been the happiest moment of your life thus far?

I don't know if it is just me - I find all these kinds of questions really difficult to answer. Is it because I feel the pressure of trying to come up with something or is it that I just don't remember?  I have had many happy days and many happy things have happened to me. The happiest moment?  I have no idea. I guess they all blend together after a while.

Some of the top choices would be:

• Seeing "Les Miserables" the first time
• Interpreting "Les Miserables" the first time
• Interpreting on Broadway (I did one scene in "Miss Saigon" with my "Interpreting for the Theatre" workshop group)
• Visiting NYC the first time (and every time after that)
• some of the parties with Amy and Todd and the gang
• time at the beach with Roby
• BookFests with Kevin

I'm sure there are things I'm forgetting, but honestly, I just don't know what I would call "the happiest moment of my life so far".  I guess that means I have had lots of happy moments...

Crazy Target Lady Ads

I miss "Joe Boxer" Target commercials with the happy guy in his happy boxer shorts doing a little dance. Every time I saw that, it made me smile.

Now, we have crazed Target sale lady (aka Maria Bamford). Seriously, if I saw this woman in real life, I would run, not walk, in the opposite direction. The look in her eyes is SCARY. I have known mentally ill people and they have THAT look.  I know that Target is trying to be funny, but I think "Carol of the Bells" is permanently ruined by the ad where our sale-obsessed heroine is tied down with Christmas lights and alarm clocks so that she will wake up in time for the Day after Thanksgiving sales and she is "bing ding ding dinging" to the tune.

When I stopped to think about the difference between the two ad campaigns, I realized that they are really indicative of the state of the world right now. Happiness and sanity are not really in plentiful supply at this point. Everyone feels crazed and worried and anxious. For me, this makes me want to at least SEE happy people to remind me what it looks like. I don't want to see more unhappy, psychotic people. I want to imagine what life COULD be like again and will...

I hope the crazy Target lady goes away after Thanksgiving, but I have a feeling that she is here to stay, at least through the holidays. She is even worse than the shrill-voiced shrieking woman in the Old Navy ads. That's saying a lot.

**Just for the record, I'm not the only one who thinks this way...A more intelligent, articulate posting is here.

It's the Journey, not the Destination

I have been thinking a lot about choices and happiness. I know there is a Happiness Flow Chart somewhere in my archives. I will look for it...

I just know allowing joy and happiness in, even when things are terrible, is a choice that can get you through the day. I'm incredibly lucky to have seen that in my time with Roby and after he died. To know laughter when your heart is broken is about HOPE. I could have shut that door, but I knew that wasn't right. So, I try to leave it open. Sometimes, it is just a crack, sometimes it is wide open. I'm lucky that I got to learn that lesson a long time ago.

I don't know why, but I've been trying to remember a quote from Marianne Williamson about "minor existential pain"...

Ahh, it wasn't quite what I was thinking, but I still think it is a great and appropriate quote for this post: “The experience of love is a choice we make, a mental decision to see love as the only real purpose and value in any situation. Until we make that choice, we keep striving for results that we think would make us happy. But we’ve all gotten things that we thought would make us happy, only to find that they didn’t. This external searching—looking to anything other than love to complete us and to be the source of our happiness—is the meaning of idolatry. Money, sex, power, or any other worldly satisfaction offers just temporary relief for minor existential pain” (Return to Love, page 57).

Report on Day 1 Back to Work

I didn't really put any energy into dreading my return to work yesterday. I don't hate my job - I find it challenging and frustrating and sometimes I wish it were less routine, but all in all, I'm pretty satisfied for the most part. I like the people I work with directly and I like the people I work with via AIM and the phone, so that's good.  Being sick yesterday really took most of my energy and focused it onto the thing I needed most - sleep.

So, today, I returned to work (after picking up some antibiotics) and it was fine. A little overwhelming to try to catch up with what happened and be on the right page for today, but fine.  When I got home, I logged into Facebook and I was struck by how down people seem to be about Mondays, about work, about the whole day. It made me happy that I am doing something that I feel I am good at, that I feel I can do good for others. Then I saw a post from a friend I know from my telecourse and her blog, A Dare A Day, and I knew what I wanted to write about. I hadn't even read the posting - just the quote that accompanied it:  "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it!  Because what the world needs is people who come alive!!!" -- Howard Thurman

The quote is from this site: Work Happier. Live Happier. 

I'm not even necessarily endorsing the site or anything - I'm off to read the whole posting, but I wanted to share my thoughts on this. I do believe that this is a case of putting out into the world what you want to get back. I don't want Mondays to be miserable. I don't want any day to be miserable, so I'm trying to just focus on all the good things and all the things I want for my days. I think it helps.  Today it did, anyway. 

Quote of the Day

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

This popped up in my "Quote of the Day" widget the other day. I liked it. It makes me feel like I'm good at the art of being happy - I do extract happiness from common things.  It's nice to be accomplished at something so important. :)

Bursting with News I can't Share

I don't like to talk about work here...the whole point of this blog is that it is NOT WORK.

HOWEVER

I got a great email today congratulating our team on a job well-done with a special project.

AND THEN

the C.E.O. of the company called to thank us for our hard work. I missed the call because I was in another meeting...but the message was really good. I saved it.

After a week like this one, I feel gratified and happy. It is nice to be recognized when you work hard.

I had to tell someone. But mum's the word. ;)

If You're Happy and You Know It...

I saw this picture on Hope Revolution's blog and followed the links to get information about it. I just love it!  Hope Revolution got it from here.

Happiness is My Choice

Today, I choose to be happy. Today, I choose to think that people have good intentions. Today, I choose to give myself the gift of patience. Today, I thought before I spoke, I tried not to react to things, but to be proactive.

My life is going at about a million miles an hour and my brain can't keep up, so I am hanging on for dear life and trying to make sure I don't run over any pedestrians in the way. So far, so good. Intention and following up with people is really helping me - communicating with them. Thinking things through.

So many things seem hard, but I choose to continue to trudge on, to fall, to pick myself up and dust myself off and perservere. It is going well.

Wish me continued success. :)

Realizations

"We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same."~Carlos Castaneda

I wouldn't say I was miserable...just not feeling happy today.

Yesterday, I realized that there is a situation in my life that I have no control over and no way to change anything but my reaction to it. Just having that hit me in the face PISSED ME OFF. I had to remove myself from the situation. I was gone all day and as soon as I came back home and a person asked me about it, I was PISSED OFF with equal intensity - as if I hadn't been gone at all, hadn't thought about it, hadn't come to a decision about my position on the whole thing.

So, in a nutshell, I spent the day thinking, analyzing, deciding, calming myself and it was all for nothing. And the same situation presents itself today. The only difference is my choice to refrain from comment. Refrain from participation. I refuse to waste another day on something I can't control.

So, what did I do yesterday? Well, early in the day, I went to a movie. The next thing starting was "He's Just Not That Into You" which is a difficult title to say when you aren't looking at the words printed out in front of you. I kind of liked it, but I found myself frustrated by a lot of the things that were portrayed about women. And at the same time, I think they were telling the truth, but it is still annoying. The main character, GiGi is desperate to find her soul-mate and spends an exhaustive amount of energy and time being desperate, stalking, whining and generally doing stupid crap and scaring off any potential person by her sheer desperation. It was almost painful to watch. Then, when she realizes that the guy who has been coaching her on how the guys just aren't that into her is ACTUALLy into her, all those whiny, lame, desperate behaviors are used to make her seem like the hero of the piece. I don't know. I guess I'm jaded.

My true favorite part of this movie was just seeing Jennifer Aniston in a movie again. I love her.I have been watching "Friends" again, on and off, and I miss them all. I liked Ben Affleck in this movie and Bradley Cooper (who I think is HOT HOT HOT).  I still don't care for Jennifer Connelly. She doesn't have any spark for me at all - not in her voice, in her look, in her eyes, in the roles she takes.  I haven't seen her in anything that I thought was particularly impressive - although I have not seen "The House of Sand and Fog".  I heard that was amazing (and it has Ben Kingsley who is good in ANYTHING, except maybe that terrible John Cusack movie "War, Inc" which I wanted to like but ultimately HATED).  I also like Justin Long (who I recognized but couldn't remember where I had seen him until halfway through the movie...for those of you who still don't remember, he was in "Live Free or Die Hard". Yes. I saw that movie. And I liked it.)

Once the movie was done, I spent some time reading, and a lot of time driving around with all kinds of crazy thoughts in my head just trying to figure out what to do about the whole thing.   My only answer yesterday was to disengage.  And then there is the spate of thoughts about all the things I am satisfied with and unsatisfied with in my life and trying to sort them into categories of things I can change quickly, things I have to work on, things I can't even think about right now and things that are what they are and no amount of grousing or angst is going to change them.  That takes a lot of energy, which resulted in today's headache.

Anyway, today, I choose not to be pissed off. That isn't the same as choosing to be happy, but it is the closest I can get for now. And I'm happy about that, at least.