Are You Happy?
Make the Choice to be Happy
Make the choice to be happy? Who doesn’t choose happiness, you say. You’d be surprised how many people don’t choose happiness…including you.
I was anything BUT happy. It was the holiday season, which seems to be increasingly more and more busy. We were in the thick of creating a Christmas concert for our church. In addition, we had house guests coming for a large Thanksgiving feast. To make matters worse, we had a small child who didn’t seem to like sleeping much.
There wasn’t a moment of our day that wasn’t filled with a “to do” or an “oh no!”
It was a high-paced, stress-filled, energy-depleting time. Have you ever experienced that?
I was not happy.
My husband and I barely had moments to breathe much less have a date night. In fact, we had filled our schedule so full that there was barely any room for any nurturing of our marriage. Has your marriage ever experienced that?
WE were not happy.
But we were committed. Happy? No. Committed? Yes. Thankfully, that commitment would help us set a new course.
Commitment says, “I love you because you are you, not because of what you do or how I feel.”
-Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott
Happiness is something we strive for…something we pursue. (unlike joy, which is a gift!)
When we are committed to our marriage, we desire to strive for happiness TOGETHER.
We have found that couples who are not fully committed to their marriage tend to strive for happiness individually. This is an important idea to think about. How are you striving for happiness? With or without your spouse?
Happiness seems made to be shared.
-Corneille
You see, happiness is a habit that must be formed and cultivated.
Happy couples decide to be happy.
EVEN when circumstances are troubling or stressful.
During that season of stress, both of us allowed ourselves to be unhappy. We CHOSE to allow the circumstance in our lives to alter our entire state of being. We allowed negativity to enter in and we even spent valuable energy feeling sorry for ourselves and blaming others for our unfortunate situation.
As a committed married couple who love each other deeply and desire a happy life, we have a choice to make EVERY DAY.
We can choose to be positive and see the good or we can choose to be negative and focus on the bad. What one of us chooses affects the other, of course!
My husband and I learned a lot during that stressful season. We realized that we had taken on too much– that our marriage could not be nurtured well with so much on our plates. So, we made some serious changes moving into the next season. Together, we decided what needed to happen in order to cultivate happiness in our marriage and our family.
In all honesty, we are in a similar season right now. Not the same circumstances, but we are both seeing the need for some shifting in our lives in order for us to experience more happiness together. Part of the shift is setting goals. One of those goals: Let’s be happy. 🙂
Happy couples decide to be happy.
What changes will you make in order to cultivate a habit of happiness?
Do you need to remove self-pity, blame or resentment to make room for happiness?
Can you think of a time where you rose above circumstances and chose to be happy?
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