SMILE!
It really is that simple.
I’m a glass-half-full kind of girl, as anyone that knows me personally can confirm 🙂
I make a concious effort to go through life looking at the positive side of things. I can’t control what happened in the past, so I try not to dwell on it. Don’t get me wrong – I take into consideration past mistakes and learn what I can from them – but then I move on. The same goes for the future. If I policed every single move that I made because I was worried about it may affect my future, I’d be a stressed out mess! I make responsible adult decisions but I also do my best to live in the moment and enjoy the heck out of life while I can.
If you’re having a particularly bad day, analyze the things that are bringing you down – see if you can find one potential positive outcome for each of those negative things. And then focus on bringing about the most positive that you can from the “bad” situations. You’d be amazed at how much smoother the ride through life is when you choose to look at it with rose-tinted glasses 🙂
“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.” ~Albert Einstein
“Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.” ~Unknown
“Don’t rely on someone else for your happiness and self worth. Only you can be responsible for that. If you can’t love and respect yourself – no one else will be able to make that happen. Accept who you are – completely; the good and the bad – and make changes as YOU see fit – not because you think someone else wants you to be different.” ~Stacey Charter
“We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.” ~Frederick Keonig
“A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.” ~Hough Downs
I was going through some old pictures, and noticed that I really tend to have a perpetual smile. It takes a lot to bring me down – here’s a brief slideshow of me from Newborn to present – and you’ll see that I have a big fat Joker-like grin in 99% of the pictures – I used to hate that grin and think that it made me look goofy – but as I’ve “grown up” I’ve learned to appreciate it as something that makes me unique 🙂
(Oh, and hopefully you’ll get a laugh from the many different crazy hairstyles and colors that I’ve tried over the years as well . . . HAHA!)
