I have been thinking a lot about happiness and to tell you the truth, I’ve been happy all my life…but not this happy. For about a month I’ve been thinking about happiness and my conclusion is it’s easy to be happy in the short-run, but if you want to be happy in the long-run, it’s work.

Why?

????

Usually what makes you happy in the short-run hurts you in the long-run. Putting that yummy, scrumptious chocolately mmm-mmm good cookie in your mouth makes you happy. Charging one thousand dollars on your credit card makes you happy. In the long-run, however, it only puts added stress in your life.

In no way, shape, or form am I depriving myself of what I love. I love to shop, I love to eat great foods, I love to go to Vegas, but right now I am focused on being happy in the long-run. Not putting a Band-Aid on my feelings.

The Hard Part

It’s difficult to let go of your old habits and your old Band-Aids, and it’s easy to feel better right now. My challenge is I want to feel better all my life.

Stress

I have been wanting to get back into the speaking world, and now I’m ready. It’s scary and stressful at the same time. It takes an emotional and financial investment that puts stress on my life. Despite this, I’m happy because even though it’s a big weight on my shoulders, I don’t have stress from other places in my life that don’t need to be there. I still have my fun, but now I’m hanging out with people who make me happy.

Another thing that gets in the way of happiness is putting off bad moments. We all have things in our lives that we don’t want to deal with right now, and some things we can’t deal with right now. In the long-term, this puts more stress in our lives that affects happiness both in the short-term and long term.  I don’t deal with everything right now, but I’m trying to have tough conversations that I know if I don’t have will affect my happiness later on.

Compartmentalize

My disability is always going to piss me off. I hate being handicapped, but I’m happy. I have dark moments every day, but there are just too many positives in my life not to be happy. There have definitely been times when amazing things were happening in my life and I was just stuck in a body that did not let me enjoy my life. Deep down, I am a really happy boy and if you know my parents, you know why. But now, my goal is to be happy no matter what. I will stumble, have bad days, struggle with disability, be really, really envious of able-bodied people. For goodness sake, I’m married, I have new business venture, I’m focused, and I have a baby on the way. For nothing else, I want my child to know that this is an amazing life and if I’m not happy, how can I teach happiness?

PS: Did I tell you that I’m happy?