My hus­band recently updated his sta­tus: I can­not believe that the pur­pose of life is to be “happy.” I think the pur­pose of life is to be use­ful, to be respon­si­ble, to be com­pas­sion­ate. It is, above all, to mat­ter and to count, to stand for some­thing, to have made some dif­fer­ence that you lived at all.

With­out him know­ing two days prior, I had vis­ited the library and checked out two books on hap­pi­ness! Guess the main rea­son was…that was his favorite line to me. He would say, “I just want you to be HAPPY!” . As stud­ies have shown..not really sure how they come up with these fig­ures, 50% of hap­pi­ness is genetics(which I can tell you already I would be at a dis­ad­van­tage. LOL) Life cir­cum­stances, age, gen­der, eth­nic­ity, mar­i­tal stat­ues, income, health, occu­pa­tion and reli­gious affil­i­a­tion account for 10 — 20 percent…that leaves about 30% up to me. :) Well actu­ally, Hap­pi­ness comes from the Lord, but what does this really mean? The oppo­site of hap­pi­ness, is unhap­pi­ness — Not depres­sion. So many peo­ple think if you are not happy then you must be depressed. Depres­sion is so much more seri­ous and should be dealt with differently.

Could I find the Secret to happiness…probably not!! It has been stud­ied for­ever and the great­est minds have already laid out what it is to be happy. I just want to be the best per­son I can be around, friends and fam­ily and make a dif­fer­ence. I find when you are happy, you light up everyone’s life around you! If it takes really learn­ing what it takes and mark­ing off goals…I am up for the chal­lenge! Expect a hap­pier me…and be pre­pared to hear all about the journey.

This was a small chal­lenge but one step closer! The other day when I went to the gro­cery store, I decided that THIS day I would not look at the ground while I was walk­ing, instead I would look at peo­ple when they looked at me and actu­ally acknowl­edge them with a smile…or a sim­ple Hello! I walked around with a smile! Right away a stranger, not an employee went and grabbed a cart for me first before he got one for him­self. I found a lot of peo­ple smil­ing back. I even saw some­one I knew and didn’t scurry behind the next aisle as fast as I could to get away from them. LOL Come on we have all done that! I say live a hap­pier life and you won’t have any rea­son not to be use­ful, to be respon­si­ble, to be com­pas­sion­ate. It is, above all, to mat­ter and to count, to stand for some­thing, to have made some dif­fer­ence that you lived at all.