On Being Happy

Have you all read Purl’s post? Basically she posed the question of how happy are you with your life and are you remembering that happiness often enough? I really wanted to write about this because it’s something I always put a lot of thought into. As Purl’s post said, she once read that women need three things in life (she added a fourth) to be happy but we just don’t ever get all of these things at one time and so always feel that something is missing. Those things are apartment, job, boyfriend, (and added by Purl) health. So I thought I’d go down the list of things. Apartment – I live in a house that I love because it’s our first home together. However we are trying to move because we’d like to be closer to both our families and to live back in the area that we both grew up in. Where we live now is kind of remote and going to a store, work, or anywhere is always a real hassle. We’re just waiting to see what the housing market is going to do before we make any big decisions. It’s hard to make big financial changes also because as a grad student I don’t have a steady career yet which brings me to… Job – I’m in school getting my practicum hours and so I know that the career I’m preparing for will be satisfying. (It’s good to know that all this hard work was in the right direction!) Currently as a job, I work for a non-profit agency so even though I don’t really love my job I love doing it because I think it makes a direct impact on people’s lives. I don’t have much longer in my position because it is grant funded and in the non-profit world it’s hard to figure out where the next dollar will come from. So we’ll see where I end up in a couple of months. Boyfriend – Or in my case, husband. I love my boy, I’ve known him for a long time and we have a great friendship in addition to our relationship. We seem to be very opposite personalities but the basic core of us is where we connect and the differences between us make for fun and interesting times. Health – This is both mental and physical. I have to admit that out of all areas in my life, this is the only one that presents a pressing concern for me. It always has. I am always trying to figure out exactly how much my weight factors into my life. Some days I feel guilty that so much of my emotions and energy are consumed by it. There are many other facets to who I am as a person but I do admit that my weight has an influence on me daily. I’d have to say that I have three out of these four things going good for me and I’m working on the fourth. I notice that the majority of these areas of my life are in transition. We’re anxious to move, my job is facing the unknown and my body and self-image are constantly under change. Yet the uncertain nature of home and job don’t worry me like body image. I guess three out of four isn’t too bad, especially when I’m dedicated to working on it. I guess my long rambling point is that I’m happy, I really am very grateful for everything I have. It’s nice to be able to post about this because I like to remind myself that although things may be up in the air and unpredictable, I’m enjoying this adventure called life!