I recently went to see Joel Osteen! You may or may not like him, but there are a few things that we cannot discredit. What I am most impressed with is their ability to stay together as a family. I know how difficult it is to keep a family together, to spend time together! Joel and Victoria managed to have their children work and worship with them!!! To me that is an amazing achievement! The other take-away for me from their Night of Hope is that Life is too short! Too short to be angry, too short to not follow your dreams, too short to not be happy! Every day, before we even get out of bed, we have a choice to make! We can choose to be happy or not! The only person who will benefit from this or pay the price for this is our self!

I have been practicing this for a while, but last Friday it really hit home! I want to choose happiness, today and every day! There are a few things we need in order to be happy! First and foremost, you have to love and accept yourself the way you are. Imperfections and all! God, or the Universe, or whatever it may be, loves you as you are. You have to genuinely feel that love and know that you are a good person. If you want to learn more about how to practice loving yourself, look into Louis Hay’s work. But as I said, it is a practice, you have to do it every day! You have to feel the love and compassion for yourself. If you can achieve that, then you will be able to give love to others! The second is gratitude! I always knew that feeling grateful is beneficial, but a few years back, a dear friend of mine asked me to participate in a study she was working on. It was the Gratitude Project. I had to spend a few minutes every day feeling truly grateful. Then I had to write in a journal how it made me feel and how it effected my day! Wow, what an eye opener! Just a few minutes of feeling the gratitude every day made me a happier person, it was like a miracle! Now I make sure to spend a few minutes every day feeling in my heart the gratitude for everything I have, and I don’t mean financially! When your focus shifts onto the good and the positive, your whole outlook on life changes! Third, you must follow your dreams! You have to know that when God puts something in your heart, you will not be able to shake it! You can try and you can find excuses, but at the end of the day, it’s still there, and you are still playing with those thoughts! For me, the big dream is to set up a school that would keep kids’ interest before anybody else’s. I might write about this dream of mine in a different post, but what I am saying is this: If there is desire in you to do something or become somebody, you should do it. Don’t let your dreams die! Lastly, always forgive and never judge! This can be very difficult, because we all grow up with a certain set of values, a so-called blueprint. When somebody acts in a way that is not part of our blueprint (either as a close family or as a society), we will wonder why they can’t just do things our way. What we need to understand is that they do things based on their blueprint, which stems from their family and/or culture. They do the best they can with what they have, and so do we! I refuse to be cynical, or assume the worst of people! That really gets us nowhere! Now I find people’s different behaviors, and reactions fascinating! Of course, it does not work every time for me either, I do get frustrated, even angry at times, but just as I forgive others, I can also forgive myself for not being perfect. I deserve that.

This is the checklist I review every day (now I know it by heart), I can work through these while getting ready in the morning, or foodshopping, or driving, any time I am alone. For me, it really works, I hope you will give it a try as well. Happiness is contagious, we should all share it. As I said in my first blog, if you have anything you want to share, good or bad, I am here to listen without judgement. Until my next post: PEACE!