What makes you happy?

In our family lately we have been focusing a lot on choosing to be happy. I don't know if it is the winter blues, tiredness, or defiance but our children have been having a really hard time realizing their life is not as hard or miserable as they might think. Yes, we all have our hard days or sometimes weeks but as I have learned there are those who seem to always have a dark rain cloud hanging over their heads all the time. I think often about these type of people and try to figure out why they are the way they are. Don't get me wrong I know there are those who are clinically depressed. I'm not trying to down play that, I know first hand that people who are clinically depressed are not wanting to be that way. I'm talking about those that are always finding the negatives in life. Walking outside and seeing it raining or snowing, right away complaining that it's raining/snowing again but then when it's hot or warm complaining that it is too hot and you just want it to rain. Complaining because you are so busy you never have time for anything and then when you do have moments of downtime complaining because you have nothing to do and you are so bored. Fighting with siblings because they won't play with you but when they do complain because they won't play what you want them to play. Complaining about having to wash the dishes or clean your room instead of being happy that at least you have running water and a room to clean. Complaining about your job instead of being grateful that you have a job to take care of yourself/family. These are the types of behaviors I'm talking about.
I am a happy person I strive to find happy people and the happy things in life. After living somewhere, where there was so much negativity and unhappy people it was scary to see how much it changed who I was. The way other people are really can affect ourselves if we allow it. I think of myself as a "hippie girl" the whole peace, love and happiness attitude I wish could exist in this world. Imagine everyone thinking of the positive things in life every day, it would make this world so much of a happier place. Unfortunately reality is that will never happen so what can we do to make ourselves happy?

I can't help to think of Happy Gilmore  (sorry to all those anti Adam Sandler fans) but it does have a good point. Happy, (Adam Sandler) has a big temper as he is training to become a golfer his trainer tells him to think of his "happy place" before he loses his temper. "Close your eyes and think about your happy place. What does it look like? Who is with you? What are you doing?" For Happy, it included a midget riding around on a bike but each of us have our own "happy place." My happy place is being with those that I love and make me happy. I honestly just want people to be happy. I am happy when my loved ones are happy. Laughter is a big thing in my life! If there is no laughter then I don't see a point. (Hence my love for comedies)

For our family I read a story I found in the Family Home Evening Resource Book, that The Church of Latter Day Saints put out. It is about a man named Viktor Frankl. He was a prisoner in a concentration camp during WWII, he talks about how they were told what to do every day of their life . They were told when to sleep, when to eat, what they wore, what they ate, and they were very cruel to them. With all that going on he said this later on,  “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. … They offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way." Viktor Frankl found out that no one could force him to be bitter and angry, no matter how much they hurt him. He could still enjoy the beauties of nature; he could love and show kindness to other people. I pointed out to my kids that this guy really was living in awful circumstances and he refused to let the circumstances change his attitude. This I think really hit home for one of my kids that whenever something doesn't go his way he/she breaks down in tears and stomps of to his room. We've talked to them about ways that we can change our attitude and positive ways of expressing ourselves if we are having a hard day or week. But most of all striving for happiness.

My point is that life isn't always going to be happy and everything will go our way. We are going to meet obstacles along the way. As tough as those obstacles are they are meant to be there to make us stronger. I can promise you that if we find what makes us happy and not focus so much on the negative things in life we will be a happier people. Be the person that brings others up not down. So now I challenge all of you think what makes you happy?