MamaBlogga

At my sister-in-law’s house, she has a painting that says, “We tend to seek happiness when happiness is actually a choice.” (I’ve mentioned this before, but I finally found where I wrote down the quote.)

I think that happiness and fulfillment have that in common—we think we’ll find these things and voilà—we’ll be set for life. Fulfillment and happiness do seem to go hand in hand. But for both of them, it is in the end a choice. To feel happy or fulfilled, we have to choose to be, not just seek them and wait for them to be bestowed upon us.

Granted, it’s also not just as easy as deciding “Yeah, I’m going to be happy now” or “Yeah, I’m going to be fulfilled now.” It’s something that we have to recapture every day. I think it’s like a Harold B. Lee quotation about personal testimonies: “Testimony isn’t something you have today, and you are going to have always. A testimony is fragile. It is as hard to hold as a moonbeam. It is something you have to recapture every day of your life.”

So I’ve tried to recapture that happiness every day by focusing on the times and actions that do make me think I wouldn’t give this up for anything. Times like Hayden voluntarily walking into Rebecca’s room as she’s struggling to fall asleep and singing her to sleep; Rebecca craning her neck just to catch a glimpse of me; Hayden asking to snuggle with me; Rebecca’s delighted squeals.

I choose to find happiness every day in the little things, and I hope that by choosing happiness, I’m choosing fulfillment, too.

Yet again, I must open with a birthday announcement: today Hayden is three years old! My big boy! And like his daddy, this year is his his golden birthday.

Happy birthday!

Today we only have two more entries for the GWP, both of which are wonderful:

• Fog by An Ordinary Mom (now officially entered)
• Letting the happiness in by Deb – Mom of 3 Girls

With only seven posts submitted right now, odds are the best ever for winning that $30 Amazon certificate! The contest is officially set to end today, but I could extend the deadline. When I’ve done this before, no one actually entered in the extended time, so does anyone want some extra time?

First off, I must begin today with a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Ryan. I won’t tell you how old he is, but I will say it’s his “golden birthday.” I envy anyone who can remember their (his/her, if you’re the grammar police) golden birthday, since I was two for mine.

Anyway. You’d think that choosing happiness would be easy. We all want to be happy, don’t we? And it would seem that realizing that being happy is a conscious choice and making that choice is the hardest part, wouldn’t it?

But it isn’t always. If it were, then everyone would be happy all the time, and obviously we’re not. The first five entries in the GWP highlight difficult times to be happy in and sometimes difficult decisions.

• Choosing Happiness from the Pit of Home Renovations by Kate Baggott
• How could I NOT by Janean
• Choosing Happiness At Home by Summer
• Cold Turkey for a Week by Lindsey
• Happiness, Now! by Mama Zen

And for some variety, I’m going to add a few posts that I’ve come across that seemed to fit in with the theme:

• Grace In Small Things 1 of 365 be Karen of MiscMum, which turned me on to:
• Grace in Small Things – Waging a battle against embitterment since 2008. The project is basically to list five small things that make you happy or make you think of grace each day.
• Fog by Lucy of An Ordinary Mom—an honest, deep look at how difficult it can be to make this choice.
• Why Comments Matter by Jane of What About Mom—parallels between blogging and motherhood, always good . Taking it to the next level, validation, even better .

Have you seen any posts around the blogosphere about choosing happiness?

This project has ended.

It’s been a really long time—a MamaBlogga Group Writing Project is way overdue. In honor of one of my resolutions this year, the theme for the January/February Group Writing Project is “Choosing happiness.”

As always, feel free to go in any direction that appeals to you. Even if you don’t choose to participate, you can encourage others to participate!

• Your post can take any form as long as it reflects this theme—this includes anything from serious to sarcastic, about your children, your future children, your pet, etc.
• You can participate with a blog post, a podcast, a video, a page on your website, etc., etc. If you don’t have a website, contact me and I’ll be happy to publish your entry here on MamaBlogga.
• Only NEW posts (i.e., posts have not been published prior to 27 January 2009) are eligible. Posts must be submitted through the submission form before Wednesday, 4 February 2009.

Why participate?
There are lots of reasons to participate! All entries that meet the guidelines will be listed and linked to here on MamaBlogga. This an opportunity for you to discover new blogs (and for others to discover yours!). Also, see how you can get the most out of the GWP.

And, of course, there is one more incentive: one lucky post author, drawn at random, will receive a $30 gift certificate to Amazon.com (to be announced Thursday, 5 February 2009).

Finally, we’d appreciate it if you linked to this post or to the guidelines/submission form on your entry post so that others can learn about the project and participate.

Previous Group Writing Projects:

• May 2007: Dear Children
• June 2007: Three things I want my kids to . . .
• July 2007: Thanks, Mom
• September 2007: Motherhood is . . .
• October 2007: The best things about this age
• November 2007: I’m grateful for my child(ren) because . . .
• December 2007: The best time of the year
• January 2008: Me time
• March/April 2008: Savoring the season
• August 2008: The new normal

January is everyone’s favorite time for setting new goals, right? I actually really don’t like making New Year’s Resolutions (come on, you know you don’t either)—because I hate setting myself up to fail, and if there were a statistic on the number of resolutions broken it would be astounding, I’m sure.

And yet I still feel the need to try to set goals this time of year. Sigh. Some of the goals I’m contemplating:

• Better prayer and scripture study—kind of amorphous, isn’t it? But plenty of room for improvement there. I’m aiming for a 30 minute scripture study/prayer time first thing in the morning.
• Run a 5K. There, I said it. Ack. Running a 5K is one of those things that I’ve always kind of wanted to do, even though I hate running. Go figure. I started training today. The race is March 14, if it’s the same weekend it was last year.
• Eat more fruits and vegetables. Notice I am under no obligation to eat less junk .
• Do more around the house. I don’t mean chores, though I really have got to get on top of those (still recovering from a two-week vacation!). We’ve been in this house for 3 years now and haven’t done a quarter of what we wanted to do with it.
• Write tons a reasonable amount. I’m nearing completion on the first draft of my latest manuscript (don’t worry, you didn’t miss the good news—I haven’t published anything yet—I haven’t even submitted anything yet. Accursed, beautiful revisions.). I’d like to get through the first draft of two more this year—and finish those accursed, beautiful revisions on last year’s two manuscripts.

But those aren’t my most important goal this year. The ultimate goal in my life, for this blog, etc., is to be happy with my life—to be fulfilled. I’ve talked before about how “finding” fulfillment is misleading—so is finding happiness. As part of my Christmas trip, I stayed at my sister-in-law’s lovely home, and she had a painting there that said (paraphrased) “We talk about finding happiness when happiness is actually a choice.”

So, resolved, for 2009:

I will CHOOSE happiness.

How do you choose happiness? What are your goals for this year?