What makes you happy???

Do you ever wonder why sometimes life feels so overwhelming that you feel like the best answer is to give up? You wonder why on earth I would continue. It would just be easier to stay in bed and let life pass me by. I know have thought those same things and it really can be a scary feeling to feel like your life is totally out of control and you leave your happiness up to chance. You secretly hope that someone will come along and recognize your pain. Then with that recognition, they will do everything in their power to make you happy. Again, there you go allowing your happiness to be controlled by someone else and some event that may or may not be spectacular. I have to admit that I am completely guilty of this. When I am on one of my happiness high, I can hardly contain myself. Life is great and no matter what is happening in my life, everything is just fantastic. However, when I am having a down day or week or even month, its like no matter how hard I tried, I could not bring myself to be happy. Since moving to Utah, I would have to say that life certainly has had its difficulties. October I reached an all time low and decided it was time for me to get help. I started going to a counselor and talking to him really started to help me come out of my rut. Even though I was talking to him, I still felt like something was missing and I still felt like I was not really Traci. That worried me a little because I did not want to lose myself again. Even though I stared to feel lost, I knew that I found myself before, so I knew that I could find myself again.

In November, things started to look up. I went on my first date in I do not know how long and something started to change inside of me. I found myself always wanting to talk to him because when I talked to him I was Traci. With him, I could be myself entirely so I thrived on talking to him. I guess in a way you could say I was clinging to our friendship. In one of my classes yesterday, I learned the definition of cling. My professor described it as a fear based desperation. She then read a quote that said, “It is this clinging, the tightness of panic that gets people killed.” . When she said that it hit me that when we cling on to the past, we are killing our growth or our personal progression. We are in essence suffocating ourselves. Well if that is not enough of a wake up call, then I do not know what else is. I think I clung so tightly on to that relationship is because I had never been there before and feared that it would never happen to me again. How is that healthy?? Oh wait it’s not. I had to come to realize for myself that I do not need other people to make me happy. For so long I relied on others to make me happy and so when things did not work between the two of us I was devastated, but it has actually been the best thing that has happened to me.

These past two weeks I have been able to do a lot of soul searching and I realize now that I really can do hard things. There were nights when I would cry myself to sleep and I would wake up with swollen eyes and a killer headache, but that is all part of the grieving process. In reality I was mourning, two loses. First I was mourning the lost of one of my very close friends and second I was mourning the loss of myself. Talk about a lot of emotions to process. Never did I think of giving up on my process of self-discovery. I knew that is was necessary for me to continue on this path of refinement so I kept swimming no matter how hard the journey got. At times, I wanted to give up and I did break down, but I knew that I would be a stronger person if I could just make it through this trial. Most importantly, I have realized that to be happy it is important to have a purpose and love in your life. I want to help people realize that they too have an amazing potential and know that they too can have this amazing happiness in their life. I started reading the book, Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar and I cannot seem to put it down. In his book, he talks about four types of people or archetypes of people who are searching for happiness.



The first group is the rat racers. They are the people who believe that once they reach a certain goal or obtain a certain status, that then they will be happy. These people base their happiness on future events instead of realizing what they have right now.

The second group is the Hedonism archetype. These people seek pleasure but avoid pain at all costs, living their lives in a way to satisfy their desires without worrying about repercussions. These people take the easy way out in life instead of taking the road less taken.

The third group is the Nihilism archetype. These people have given up on happiness and are resigned to live a miserable life (talk about depressing).

The final group is the Happiness archetype. These people realize that they can be happy no matter what moment they are in. They realize that they do not have to be happy all the time but that they can enjoy life for all that it has to offer. The author puts it best when he says, “The rat racer becomes a slave to the future; the hedonist, a slave to the moment; the nihilist, a slave to the past. Attaining happiness requires that we enjoy the journey on our way toward a destination we deem valuable. “

So who are you in this spectrum of people? I am a rat racer and a hedonist. I think that as soon as I reach a certain goal that then I will finally obtain happiness and that if I do it without pain, then I will be ultimately happy. I could not be more wrong. Life is about our journey, I have not mastered the art of Happiness but I am finding that my life is more peaceful as I realize just how blessed I am. Gratitude really has changed my life and can change yours too. Start today with a gratitude journal and every day write three things that you are grateful for in your life. In three months, you will be a happier person. I have been doing this for the past two weeks and I can already see a change in my life. Now is the time to take back your life and stop letting life pass you by.

Author Tal Ben-Shahar gives great council to all of us when he said, “Happiness is not about making it to the peak of the mountain nor is it about climbing aimlessly around the mountain; happiness is the experience of climbing toward the peak.”