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The idea that you can choose to be happy is hardly a new one. But I read an article recently that reminded me that I can always choose to be happy and, right now, I am happy in large part because I choose to be.
I'll let some of our other CE's tackle the central premise of this article but this is what got me thinking...
Of course, we’d be loath to admit it in this day and age, but ask any soul-baring 40-year-old single heterosexual woman what she most longs for in life, and she probably won’t tell you it’s a better career or a smaller waistline or a bigger apartment. Most likely, she’ll say that what she really wants is a husband (and, by extension, a child).... every woman I know—no matter how successful and ambitious, how financially and emotionally secure—feels panic, occasionally coupled with desperation, if she hits 30 and finds herself unmarried.
I'm over 40, I'm not married and I have no children. Apparently I must be desperately unhappy. But I'm not. How on earth did that happen?
Another recent series of articles about a study also got me thinking about how I could possibly be happy. According to the study, "misery dominates middle age."
The researchers, whose study will be published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, found that in the United States happiness reached its lowest point around age 40 in women and age 50 in men. In Britain, unhappiness was greatest in men and women at age 44.
I'm 45. I'm supposed to just barely rising up from the lowest point in my life. Coupled with being an old maid crazy Chihuahua lady I should be utterly and completely miserable.
All I can say is if this is the worst, then whoo hoo! I cannot wait to get older.
Megan Daum thinks this study might be a good tool to help people feel a little bit better and a little bit less depressed:
But what if we were to enter a therapist's office and be told that feeling depressed is just a natural part of the aging process, the psychological equivalent of extra waistline fat or arthritic knees? Moreover, what if your typical 44-year-old American was told that his depression, while probably not wholly unrelated to some trauma dating back to toddlerhood, is ultimately not all that different from that of 44-year-olds in most of the world?
He would, in all likelihood, get a second opinion (or a sports car), but something tells me he might also accomplish the next best thing to actually feeling good: He might feel less depressed about being depressed. That's not a bad way to wait out the years until your 70th birthday.
Lee Randall, across the pond, writing in the Scotsman notes: "The older I get, the more I appreciate my happy moments"
I'd felt it earlier that day, rounding a bend en route to the Picadilly line. With plenty of time to travel, I wasn't rushed. No part of my body hurt. I had money in my wallet. I was meeting someone new and potentially interesting. Not very glamorous, is it? Yet I felt my chest open, my heart expand, and a crystalline momentary bliss descend.
And that is an excellent way to choose happiness - to recognize the little moments.
Don't get me wrong. I am fully aware that getting happy and moving through and past depression is not that simple. It will be hard work for many and will not be achieved without medication and/or therapy. I do not wish to trivialize mental illness. However, many of us could be happier in our lives simply by recognizing that we want to be and choosing to be.
And while I've talked a bit in the past about how to get happy, let me now introduce you to a tiny tip of the iceberg of BlogHers who are blogging choosing happiness:
Pepper Schwartz, PhD says that it is possible to be single and happy but you have to make some choices:
single women must realise that they are "the architects of their own expansion," Schwartz tells WebMD. "Develop a broad number of interests — classes, volunteer work, travel plans, political involvement. What you’re fighting is that home-alone syndrome. You’re making sure people will take you out of everyday life maintenance. When you have a partner, their interests help extend your life. When you’re single, you have to build that in."
