Life Lessons

Just because every blog post should have a picture....and it is so rare to catch him without his sunglasses on or some dorkie expression....love this picture. Love this man.

and you know what - he is no where near what I thought my "perfect husband" would be. I was posed a question recently for a project I am involved in. It has been on my mind and sometimes there is no better way to get it out than to type it here.

The question - Life Lessons, what have you learned? I am adding - what do I hope to pass on, leave for my kids...etc....I have been thinking about it, and having trouble really forming a thought...until this thought came to me today -

Happiness is relative.

Relative to our situation at any given time.

Relative to our state of mind and reaction to the situation at the time.

Relative to our choice to be happy or not.

Relative to our ever changing lives and our expectations of it.

Life deals out the unexpected all too often.

What I thought would make me happy 20, even ten years ago....is not my present life reality...but amazingly I am happy. Things I never expected to make me happy in life, make me happiest. It is so easy to have huge expectations of ourselves and our lives. Being happy in our life totally depends on how we deal with how those expectations are met, or most times not met.

Sometimes being happy depends on finding the strength to change our situations, and make ourselves happy by purging our lives. Leave an abusive spouse. Find a new job. Make a positive out of a negative. Our minds need to be open to the changes, able to see things that we may not have thought about, and having the courage to leave behind misconceptions and embrace the new. In that way, we control our own happiness.

Often times our discontent comes from digging in our heels, throwing a temper tantrum because things aren't exactly as we wanted , like a toddler who is not getting his way. And as with that toddler...it isn't til we settle down, get to a quiet moment that we can see that the other option offered is pretty darn good too.

No - we can't walk around with pollyanna grins on our faces all the time, and no one can physically be in the state of "happiness" every second. But happiness, perhaps the better word would be contentment, can be had even in challenging times.

If there is one thing I can leave my kids, other than hopefully their faith, it is the lesson that we don't always get what we want, we can't always have what we want. And IT'S OK.

We can be happy, and content with what we have and the strength to make the necessary changes IS within them.