the blue muse

It’s hard not to feel happy when the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and spring is in the air, offering a peek at summer just around the corner.

I’ve been thinking a lot about happiness lately, partly because I have been reading Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, and partly because of things I have learned and experienced through www.happinessinside.com, a site that my brother and his wife started last year.

And I have discovered, in the past six months or so that I’ve been thinking about happiness, that it actually is something you can learn to do, to be, it is something you can accomplish.

I used to think it was a state of mind, now I am understanding that is is a way of life. It is a choice.

Happiness doesn’t happen to you, it comes from within. It is something that you can acquire, through work and attitude and by opening yourself up to it. It isn’t an external force that you have no control over.

And I’m not talking about being a bubbly, happy go lucky with nary a care in the world kind of happiness. I’m talking about feeling content. With your life, with who you are, with how you behave. It’s about being true to yourself, living in the moment, appreciating the humanness of others. It’s about loving the fact that you’re alive.

For me, creativity plays a major role in my happiness, it always has. It’s something that makes me unhappy if I don’t do it. It’s something I can’t NOT do. The past few months, since starting my blogs, have been a flurry of creativity for me. Writing again, creating images, photography. It has all kept me insanely busy. But I am happy busy. I am doing things that I love. I am meeting wonderful people.

Happiness isn’t just sunshine and kittens and balloons and special occasions. Happiness is savoring my first cup of tea in the morning. A long run that leaves me feeling exhilarated. A bouquet of lilacs picked from my garden. Pizza night with my family every Friday. A hug from a friend, or my husband, or my son. A word of encouragement from someone I admire.

Simple, ordinary things. That I have the presence of mind to appreciate.

That’s what makes me happy.