NutritionalAnarchy May 12 2014
Are you happy?
I mean right this second. How do you feel? I’m talking about something totally unrelated to the events in your life – I’m asking how you feel inside, irrespective to your job, your love life, and your finances. I’m asking about your overall way of walking through the world. I’m talking about the ability to seize upon those moments of unexpected beauty or joy, and better your day with them.
Think for a minute about a child and a dog, like in the photo above. There was a moment of complete joy when they saw the water – they both took off running because the surprise of this unexpected little body of water on a trail excited them so much. When is the last time that you saw something so wonderful that you just kicked off your shoes and ran to embrace it?
If you don’t have moments like this, then maybe you need to rethink how you go about your days. If you aren’t basically happy, then perhaps you are going about this whole “life” thing wrong.
I’m generally a very cheerful person. I like to look on the bright side of everything and when I’m having a bad day, I like to distract myself with good things to turn it around. Some people find this light-hearted perspective eccentric at best, annoying or insane at worst. It isn’t that I am unaware that there are bad things happening in the world, in my life, or in the lives of others. I just don’t enjoy dwelling on the negativity – I like solutions.
I had a conversation with a close friend the other day and he told me, “I think the reason that some people think you’re crazy is because you are just so happy all the time.”
I replied, “How terrible is it that we live in a world where optimism is considered a sign of mental illness?”
So think about that…in a world where they give millions of people pills because they are depressed, going through life as a happy person is so abnormal that people think you’re unhinged and out of touch with reality. We live in a society in which misery is the status quo. Drama is the norm. Anxiety is the default emotion.