Happiness and the choice to choose it

Your success and happiness lies in you.

Resolve to keep happy,

and your joy and you

shall form an invincible host

against difficulties.

- Helen Keller

I have said this before, I am always moved when I read Helen Keller's quotes, and really try to understand what point she is trying to convey. This is one that really hits home. My happiness here in my home for my family, lies within me. Regardless of the trials, if I strive to be happy, if we strive to be happy, we will be. I truly think happiness is an innate force we are all given when born and something we strive for subconsciously. It's a conscious decision however to live your life, happy. We can get be led astray with life's difficulties, throw our hands up and cowardly have our pity party (trust me I have done that). We can lose focus, play the victim, and allow adversity to get the best of us and lose our destination. The day to day shuffle, the pressure of finding balance between family, work, obligation, life can become overbearing and unweildly. However, if we choose to continue to stay on the path of happiness, we will not get lost.

For a while, at the beginning of my learning time (that's what I like to call the phase right after getting Gavin's diagnosis), I did not want to be happy. Sure, I would say I wanted to be, but I did not want to be happy. I did not want to be happy with the news I was given, our new life with our son and a disability I knew nothing about. Being happy meant I was accepting it. I did not want to accept it, you can read that about here. But now, after the acceptance, comes happiness. I am naturally a happy, see the glass half full type of person. I went off track a little with my pursuit of happiness, but it was always inside. It was my choice to choose it. For a while, I did not choose it.

I hope you realize it is a choice to choose happiness. Whatever it be, defined only by you. Not by society, not by a measure of success, not by your peers, not by things, but by you. Our days are numbered, our life a blink of time. Find your joy, define it by your definition and choose happiness. Our life with Gavin, is a much happier place than 365 days ago. This time last year, I was confused with my inner turmoil that something is wrong with my child, and feeling like noone else shared my torture. Today, we are happy, I am happy and our choice to live our every single day full of happiness, is a choice we will continue to make.

I hope you do the same, life is so much better making the choice and knowing it is an option.

Disclaimer: Just speaking from my heart, and my experience. I know life throw some pretty scary, sad times at us. Not meant to put an easier-said-than-done overtone on this. Just looking back and sharing what I have learned through my sadness.