"Don't forget to stop and smell the roses."
This is a very popular sentiment that many people quote in life. What they mean is that we should never forget to enjoy life as we go along. Although, the meaning it has taken on in modern times is a little different. For most people this saying now equates to, "during your life, as you spend most of your time working, taking care of your kids, doing housework and every other manner of chores, every now and again try and fit something into your life that brings you happiness." I feel that this meaning is closer to the way people interpret this saying in today's hectic world. Unfortunately this interpretation sets people up to believe that being happy is something they must fit into their life between all of the other stuff.
Well, I'm here to tell you that that is not the case. Actually, it is the exact opposite.
The challenge is to find ways to make being happy a natural part of your life so that it seamlessly blends into your everyday actions. This guarantees that you won't have to go out of your way to be happy, or do your best to steal some time for your own happiness from the time dedicated for your other "responsibilities".
What I'm suggesting is to approach life in such a way as to make everyday actions pleasurable and fun, so that you are often doing things that make you happy, at the very least daily, if not many times a day.
"OK", you're saying, "how am I going to manage to make my everyday life fun? Do you even know what I have to do in a day? I have to get up by 6:30 am, get the kids up, get them ready for school, feed the dog, have breakfast, somehow get the kids to eat, truck them off to school, fight traffic to get to work on time, deal with a demanding boss and sometimes back-stabbing employees, if I'm lucky steal 15 minutes to scarf down some food for lunch, more demanding boss and bitchy employees, more nasty commuting to get to the babysitters, pick up the kids, go home, make dinner, help the kids with their homework, get them bathed/showered, put them to bed, make lunches for the next day, tidy the kitchen from dinner, put out the garbage, look at that report my boss wants by 9:00 am tomorrow, and then maybe, just maybe, when I'm done all of this, I might find just a smidgeon of energy left to enjoy a TV show, or read a little, or, oh my God, take a relaxing bath, and then finally crawl into bed, ready to do the whole crazy charade all over again tomorrow. Where is there time for happiness and fun?"
Well, I think there was time for happiness and fun and playfulness in almost everything you did that day, it just depends on whether you're willing to look for it. Let's tackle just a few of things that were mentioned earlier. If you're going to get up at 6:30 am, then you might as well help make the beginning of your day set the tone for a great day. Why not set your alarm to play music instead of that harsh beeping that always makes you groan in horror when you hear it. It may take a little getting used to in the beginning, but you'll be amazed at how your mood will be much lighter and more positive after spending the first couple of minutes of your day listening to music that "gets your blood pumping".
As you're getting the kids ready for school, why not talk a bit about what you're going to be doing that evening together, or plan a fun meal that you can all prepare together, or a movie you're going to watch on DVD, etc. Rather than just going through your "getting ready" routine silently (or perhaps grumbling about it), instead focus on looking forward to things to come.
Driving to work can be made more fun if you listen to some of your favourite music, listen to a book on disc, or use a voice recorder to record some thoughts about upcoming events, birthdays, trips, dinner parties, whatever gets your mind off of the traffic and onto more happy things.
Helping the kids with their homework can not only allow you the opportunity to bond more with your kids, but to really get a look into the type of things they are learning, where their head is at, what their strengths and weaknesses are, etc. Instead of approaching it as a chore, look at it as a chance to learn more about your kids lives and an opportunity to spend meaningful time together.
After dinner, when you do have some "free time" for yourself, make sure you use this time to its utmost and really pamper yourself. Enjoy a decadent dessert and really savour it as you eat it. If you're going to have a bubble bath, pour in a lot of soap to get a lot of bubbles going, and light candles and play music to set the mood. If watching a little TV is your thing, get into your comfy clothes, get a nice beverage of your choice, a blanket or two, a pillow or three, and really make that hour an experience to relish, not just a quick hour of television at the end of another hard day.
I think you have an idea of where I'm going with this. Being more happy comes down to how you approach things in life, not what you have or don't have. Study after study has shown that once someone has the basic necessities of life (food, shelter and love), money makes virtually no difference to their happiness levels. You could make $50,000 a year or $5,000,000 a year, it really doesn't matter. In fact, more and more studies are starting to crop up suggesting that the person with the $5,000,000 has even more stress than the person with the $50,000. They are constantly fighting off charities, greedy relatives, scam artists, and at the same time worrying about whether they are spending their money in the best possible manner.
So, if money doesn't make people happier (as we were all led to believe when we were younger), what does? Attitudes and experiences, that's what.
Someone with a positive outlook on life and a willingness to turn everyday moments into deep pleasurable experiences is much more happy than someone who looks at life as nothing but a bunch of stuff to get through. I mean, think about it for a second. If you're just spending every day trying to get through all of the stuff life throws at you, in hopes that every now and again you may stumble across something that brings a ray of happiness into your life, then what are you really living for?
Do you remember back when you were a teenager? Remember the kinds of things you looked forward to being able to do when you "grew up"? You couldn't wait until you could stay up as late as you wanted on a school night, eat Oreos and Coca-Cola for dinner (which I've done btw), get into "R" rated movies, have sex somewhere other than the back seat of your parent's car, etc. What happened to that optimistic teenager that looked forward to adulthood as a time to make all your own choices and get the opportunity to enjoy your life the way you wanted?
Well, for one, we gain responsibilities. Isn't it interesting that as a kid we can't wait to grow up and make our own decisions, and yet when we do finally get to adulthood, all we can say is how much our responsibilities stress us out.
Between the time we were a kid and the time we became an adult, we forgot the benefits of being an adult. Or, more accurately, we let the "responsibilities" of being an adult overshadow all of the "perks". Are you one of the people who forgot that when you were young that those "perks" were some of the things that you looked forward to doing when you got older? I'm just trying to show you that there are lots of great things in your life right now, and you only have to look at the choices you have every day to see them and be happy.
What about laughter? Do you laugh a lot? I'm willing to bet that you don't laugh near as much as you used to when you were younger. I recently read about a disturbing study that found that toddlers laugh on average 100 times more than adults do in a day. 100 more times! What do we do to ourselves as we grow up that so limits our laughter?
Too often we focus on the things we have to get accomplished each day; going to work, chores around the house, etc., instead of focusing on the time in between these things that allow us to do whatever we want to. In fact, one could say that even having the choice to do the chores we have is good, because there are lots of people in the world that don't even have that. They don't have to clean up after dinner, because they rarely have anything to eat. They don't have to go to work every day, because they don't have a job, and as a result no money to do anything fun. They don't have to clean their house because they don't have a home; instead they live on the street.
Too many people take for granted all of the great things they have in their lives right now, and by doing so, miss out on tons of opportunities to greatly increase their happiness levels and have a more positive outlook.
But hey, back to the roses. I'm sure that if you were to take stock of all of the things you do in an average day, you could find at least one thing that you could have a different attitude about - one thing that you could approach from a different perspective and perhaps make it more pleasurable. That's all you need to do. Just pick one thing. Just one! But, when you pick that one thing (however small), really try and find a completely new way of dealing with it. Really make the effort to turn that "chore" into an "experience", something that you may even look forward to as time goes on.
Of course, if you can do it once, you can do it twice. If you can do it twice, you can do it a few more times. Next thing you know, you're on your way to transforming lots of things in your life into moments of pleasure and joy. One day you'll look around and realize you smell the roses every day, sometimes multiple times a day, and the "chores" have diminished to just a couple.
Here's a few of the things in my life that bring me pleasure. Most of these you probably do also, but I'll bet you don't extract the same joy from them that I do. Test yourself. See how many things on the list below you count as "pleasurable".
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