Choosing Happiness

So I've discovered lately that happiness is something you choose, not something you find. A lot of the time life is somewhat out of your control. There are somethings you can change, but there are also a lot of things that you can't, so instead you have to choose to change your attitude about them. You can decide to be frustrated and miserable because life isn't just how you want it or you can choose to happy in spite of it.

What has made a big difference for me lately is not allowing other people's actions to dictate my emotions or my self worth. I'm coming to a point where I am happy with myself and so I don't feel such a need others' approval or validation. In the past I think I allowed too much of my self esteem come from how other people treated me. I wanted everyone to like me and think highly of me. However, that is a dangerous place to rest your self worth. You really can't control what other people think about you or how they treat you. You can try to be the best person you can be, but ultimately there will still be people who may misjudge you or just plain not like you. I mean, think about Christ, the one perfect person to ever walk the earth. Not everyone liked or approved of Him. People misjudged and mistreated Him. No matter how good you are you can't make everyone like you. Even people who do like you (friends, family, spouses etc.) may not always treat you the way you wish they would. But if you're not relying on the approval and actions of other people to make you happy and feel of worth then it will be ok. You need to learn to love yourself and to glean self esteem from your relationship with your Heavenly Father and how He feels about you. This is one of the most liberating things I have come to realize! I'm not perfect at it, but I'm improving. People only have as much power over our emotions as we give them. It's your life- choose to make it a happy one!

Confessions of a total Blogging Slacker

So apparently I can add blogging to the ever growing list of things I'm not so good at in life.

My current ward calling is as the activities chair person. Granted, the church kinda did away with the activities committee, but as a singles ward our bishop feels that activities are pretty vital so we have a monthly activity that I'm in charge of. The ward has an annual formal dinner and dance which is kind of a big deal I guess. Luckily the Relief Society President volunteered to be in charge of the decorations and we had it catered so that left me with not too much to do (besides help with the decorations- which took a long time but was actually pretty fun).





Also a couple of things I've come to realize lately:

1. The Lord answers prayers in the most surprising of ways. Sometimes what I have thought was a terrible thing actually ends up being a total blessing. God has a much better perspective than I do, so the next time I think to complain about something I think I will take a step back and realize that maybe it actually a tender mercy (as a lot of my trials have turned out to be lately).

2. The whole point of our time here on earth is to grow and become better, and trials are a necessary part of that. So when faced with difficulties I am trying to look at it as an opportunity to learn something and become better instead of asking "why me?" or wondering why life can't just constantly be a picnic.

3. Life is full of highs and lows of all kinds. Spiritually speaking I was on a high a few weeks ago and now I feel like I've been in a bit of a low. I think in my life this sometimes happens when I try to turn to something, anything, other than the gospel to make me happy or fill a void in my life. I think that's usually the reason we sin- we believe that somehow it will make us happy. Over and over again we learn that "wickedness never was happiness".