this is my beautiful house

i've been thinking a lot about simple things. i read a really great book this summer called "happiness project" by gretchen rubin. in the first chapter, she tells about a bus ride home one day when she came to the realization that she was in danger of wasting her life away. she wasn't unhappy; she is married to a great man with two beautiful daughters and a good job, but she felt like she was taking her life for granted. she made the analogy of waiting your whole life for your beautiful house and just getting by on less until you have it. then one day, you look around and realize "this is not my beautiful house." do you ever just wait for your life to start? i sometimes do. and then i realize this is my life. the thing is, i really have a great life. not just a great life, but a fantastic one. i have been so blessed with an amazing family and good friends and experiences that can't be duplicated. i sometimes feel like i don't deserve to have such a good life. but i think we all take what we have for granted...no matter how awesome our lives really are. the grass will always be greener....when you have a boyfriend or.....when you buy a nice house or....when you start making good money. but the grass is green wherever you make it green. gretchen rubin decided that she wanted to change her life without changing her life. so she spent a whole year working on bettering herself in twelve different aspects of her life, one for each month. one for marriage, one for friends, one for attittude, one for family, one for energy, etc. she charted her progress every day in the smallest aspects and by the end of the year she had discovered a few things. she hadn't changed her life, but she had more gratitude for her life. she also discovered that everyone has a scale of happiness. so no matter what life you have been given, you have control over your position on the happiness scale, which is your potential for being happy.

i've been really careful since reading "happiness project" to not live in the future or the past. live in the moment. BE the moment. be happy for what you are doing right now. last weekend, a friend took me out to a quartet concert here in rexburg. i was closing my eyes, listening to the cello and the acordian play this beautiful parisian song and all of a sudden i could not stop smiling. have you ever been hit with an overwhelming sense of happiness for no reason? in the middle of your oridnary day, you are unexpectedly overcome with a sense of happiness, peace, and the thought that you're A-OK, and you just continue what you were doing with a little extra skip in your step. i wasn't even here, i was floating in this happy place, for just a few minutes. well, i'd be lying if i said that i've been able to constantly live in this state of happiness. i yell, cry, get frustrated, get jealous, blow up over small things. but by being aware of my happiness and the simple things throughout the day (it helps that i have to keep a "hand of the lord" journal for one of my classes), i'm dwelling somewhere higher up on my happiness scale.

i don't want to be one of those people who die waiting for their lives to start! this is it, i only have one chance, and i am going to take every opportunity that i can to be happy about it. i want to die a truly happy person with no regrets. it's all about attitude. this is my beautiful house!

P.S. i'm going to start blogging more often. i've kind of fallen off the bandwagon :)