Happily Ever After

     I am in the midst of a total paradigm shift concerning my thoughts on happiness. Growing up anymore is a complicated process. Earlier than ever there are so many pressures put on us. Kids are distracted about how they look. Schools start to apply pressure about the importance of grades and how they affect you long into the future. The materialistic society teaches them that if you don't have the latest, greatest biggest, and best, then life is basically not worth living. I recognize all of these things when I think rationally. However, my current revelation is that they were all in effect during my formative years. I guess on some level I realized it then. But I am just now stepping back and seeing how that effected who I am today.
         Throughout the years I have been very reflective on removing unhappiness from my life. I have always agreed with the cliche that life is too short. I certainly think it's too short to live unhappy. Therefore, I have routinely identified things and people in my life that have been a source of displeasure and tried to remedy the situation. If there was no viable solution to the problem then at that point I felt it was best to move on.  I guess that my most recent revelation is that avoiding unhappiness does not mean that you are going to be happy. For a long time I had settled for not being unhappy, and now I realize that's a lower standard of living. It's not good enough anymore.
     Happiness, like love is multi-faceted. There is work involved to get there. It's a journey. But just like in love when you stand back and look at it. When you think of all that you had to go through to obtain it. It's worth it. From now on I choose happiness.