I woke up feeling cranky this morning.
The weather is gray and ugly. My foster kitten Dewey never stops meowing and it’s incredibly annoying. My dog has to be walked on a leash instead of just being let outside because she recently had knee surgery. She kept me standing out in the wet grass for a long time sniffing around instead of peeing quickly.
As my morning unfolded, I found more and more things to be annoyed about.
The darling baby ducklings in my storage room spilled their water all over their enclosure and soaked all their bedding. There were a bunch of dishes still in the sink from last night. The momma dog and her puppy I have living in my garage had torn up their bed AND the pee pad for the puppy and there was all kinds of mess all over the garage floor.
By the time 8 am rolled around, I was pretty darn unhappy. But then I was reminded of something.
Happiness doesn’t just happen. We create our own happiness.
Happiness doesn’t come from external things. It doesn’t come from the weather, from pets, or from other people, it comes from within us. Our THOUGHTS create our emotions. If we take control of our thoughts, we can take control of our emotions.
You may have seen the Bounty paper towel commercial featuring a mother who is beaming over the fact that her son is using his straw to blow bubbles in his chocolate milk, causing it to overflow the glass and spill all over the table. I remember the first time I saw it, I thought, “What a dumb commercial. What mother in her right mind would be happy about the huge mess this kid is making.” However, I realized I was looking at it from a place of negativity. When I looked at the commercial again, I could see how the mother was happy because her older son was bringing joy to his baby brother, who was laughing at the bubbles, saying, “again, again!”
Of course this is a scripted commercial, but it’s a great reminder of something Dr. Wayne Dyer once said, “If you change the way you look at things the things you look at change.” I think all of our lives would be enriched if each of us took the time to see the positive in things and create more happiness.
