Waking Up Happy

If I could wake up as happy as Bean wakes up, life would be so much better.

Every morning, without fail, Bean wakes up with a giant smile on her bed-headed face. “Mom, can I get up?”

I say with a smile, “Yes, Bean, you can get up. You’re such a happy girl, aren’t you?” and she responds with an even bigger smile, the kind that shapes her eyes into upturned half moons. The smile that melts my heart. And then she asks me to make her oatmeal and chocolate milk.

Being the self-help nerd that I am, I’m constantly seeking out the latest best-selling book on achieving ultimate happiness and satisfaction with life. I’ve read “The Happiness Project” and “Happier at Home”, both of which are fantastic reads. Recently I’ve forgotten to focus on the ultimate tool that I already have in leading a happy life: FAITH.

Kid’s don’t have to focus on faith because they’re naturally faithful. Doubt is not a part of their make up. By the time you’re a full-fledged adult, life has thrown enough curve balls your way that you learn to doubt. It creeps in and starts to feed your anxiety meter.

In my life, I’ve learned that my overall happiness directly correlates with how much I try to predict and define the future. My over-achieving self will try and plan what I should be doing and what my husband needs to be doing for the rest of our lives. And then in the same vein of thought, when I realize that nothing is forever and nothing is a given, I get overwhelmed with the anxiety that I ultimately have no control over what the future holds.

Hello? Isn’t what i’m focusing on the opposite of the definition of faith? Faith is defined as complete trust or confidence in someone or something. Even if you’re not a Christian, I think you can relate to the fact that the more faith you have, the greater level of happiness you can achieve. The only difference I would like to point out is that putting your faith in people will a lot of the time let you down. Faith in God will never let you down.

Ultimately, I think having faith needs to be paired with another concept. The other side of the equation: appreciating the now. If you appreciate the blessings and positives that are currently in your life and let the rest fall where it may by putting your faith in God (or whatever higher power it is you think exists), what else is there to worry about? That is the ultimate definition of happiness.

Faith + appreciating the now = ultimate life satisfaction. You guys, I figured it out! Now if only I could live this every day unwavering, then I would really have it made.