The universe has started to answer my last question -- Already!

Or so I think...

This posting here on Copyblogger accidentally fell into my lap when perusing Danielle LaPorte's ever-wise, uplifting , and inspirational blog and subsequent twitter site. The Copyblogger posting talks about the motive of one's writing, specifically when blogging and about how it can come from either a self-serving motive or in service of one's audience. Though I don't necessarily see a blog as my end all be all, it's undoubtedly going to provide initial and ongoing value for both me -- and if I'm lucky-- for others. It really makes perfect sense that if you're blogging just to make revenue, the content would wind up diluted, weak, and drab. To this end, being in service of others is actually self-serving, only it's a backwards way of getting there. A difference that makes all the difference in the world.

What's really funny about this find in a without-a-doubt- non-coincidental way, is that the blogger who directed me to this posting on providing valuable content as gifts to your readership...was a blogger who provides this for me. What a perfect circle.

Though this doesn't answer my question entirely about what to focus on, it does give me a motive to live by. I also got to see my question start to be answered much faster than expected....Priceless. I'm learning that you really do get what you ask for.

Finding Happiness

With a title "Finding Happiness" looming above, you must think this entry must have some magnificent, yet simple, gems of human wisdom in it. I doubt that, but I will say that rehearsing happiness does have it's privileges. I haven't got an entry in this whole month...but many life-blog thoughts have been appearing in my daydreams and journaling, so it's time I shared.

When I think on rehearsing happiness it sounds like either one of two things: a)This girl is nuts to think she can just find happiness by rehearsing it; or b)This statement is so simple, it could easily be overlooked for foolishness. I think the reality is somewhere in between. Most definitely the average unhappy person sleep-walking around isn't paying attention to their own ability to have a happy life. Thus, argument b is in play. Yet the foremost conclusion, the one where I'm a delusional woman thinking she can simplify the difficulties of life into a glib little statement - is also true. Let me caveat that with, it's only true if you want it to be.

So, when I am sleep walking through the muck of life, I'm guilty of believing in that cynical conclusion. I will report that when I catch myself sitting around in my own muck (aka: pooping in your own fishtank, if I were a fish in this metaphor), I am shorter in my bounce-back to a happy reality than I previously was. I've never considered myself a happy person, until now. I'm starting to notice the force of optimism and the strong will for happiness I've actually had moving in me for quite some time. Whether I realized it or not, I was born with this ability. I also believe we all are born with this ability.

What does it take for one to tap into her or his own well-spring of happiness? Go on, try it. I dare you to catch yourself feeling hopelessly stuck in the muck, and then just try this on. Try on that if you start to just "be like you're happy", you will start "doing things that a happy person does" and 'lo and behold, before you can make sense of it or start to complain again, you'll have a happy self on your hands. This isn't instantaneous and of course life still has pain. It's the suffering that is optional. What do you have to lose?

Do you have particular methods for getting yourself out of the doldrums? I find reading other blogs such as the Happiness Project are a reliable source of inspiration when I need to refuel my own happy charge.