This may sound a bit new age of me, but after a long talk with Bethany last night, I'm pretty much okay with sounding a bit new-agey. We were each of us talking about how we are generally optimistic, happy people. The world is at our fingertips, so to speak. We've got jobs that pay our bills, roofs over our heads, food in our bellies and friends to call upon for company or sympathy. When you look at the big picture, we've each got it made.

And that for us, is enough.

Now granted, things aren't perfect and each of us struggle with lots of extraneous factors - but on the whole, we find ourselves generally pretty content with the lives we lead. The root cause, we both noticed had one underlying factor: happiness is a choice. You can choose to be happy or you can choose to be sad. Yes, sometimes over-the-top situations force sadness (ie, death/loss) but at the end of the day, you choose to curl up into bed and let those negative emotions rule over you. Don't get me wrong, it's perfectly normal to grieve a loss and be sad and take time for yourself. It is of the utmost importance to feel your feelings, but believe me when I state that there is a definite point in which the feelings you feel begin to overtake you and your capacity to be happy.

Take today for example.
It is a gloomy Portland day. I am running on five hours of sleep and am quite exhausted mentally. I have several extraneous stressors in my life. Then when I go grocery shopping, I fell into a mud puddle. One of my grocery bags ripped on the way home and at that exact moment, it began to rain furiously. I was soaked, head to toe. Now for all intents and purposes, today has made me its bitch and is determined to get me down -- but my spirit remains intact.

The simple fact: happiness is a choice. And instead of letting my stressors and pains grab hold of me, I have chosen instead to embrace the crap and laugh. I put on some happy music, ate a yummy cookie and now the world is right again. Yes, sometimes it's nice to curl up in bed, hide under the blankets and take a nap - I am all about the loveliness and comfort of a nap - but at some point, you've got to wake up, go for a run and kick the crap out of life and it's stressors.

Because this is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time. ;)