Happy

This morning, I woke up in my house. Thank God! While this may seem like a weird reason to be in praise, I believe this deserves noting. For the past two weeks I spent time with family in California, celebrating my favorite brother's connection to a beautiful woman, arguing with cousins, headaches from grandparents, watching my nephew experience Disneyland for the first time. All of these things: the good, the bad, the euphoric....they sum up what life is all about.

Let me just dive into this idea for you. In life I believe that we are called to endure adversities. Keyword: Endure. According to Bing (haha), to endure is explained as simply as this: "to last or survive over a period of time, especially when faced with difficulties." What I find amazing about this definition is that it calls for us to survive. Adversities are put in our paths for us to OVERCOME, for us to emerge as RESILIENT, and be REBORN in our success.

On this trip I experienced a plethora of emotions. I was angry, irritated, happy, excited, nostalgic, etc. What do these all have in common? They are MY emotions. I believe that emotions are where we find ourselves, where we find truth, where we discover what our life means. With this in mind, I absolutely LOVE looking back at life experiences  and finding places where I can grow or learn something new. Going on this trip, I was in the mindset that I was only going to enjoy my brother's wedding and go to Disneyland -- that's it. I assumed that my family would irritate me, annoy me, just all out drive me crazy. And by walking in with this mindset, that's exactly what my experience was -- in the beginning. As I continued on my vacation I became sluggish, exhausted, lethargic. At this moment, MY SPIDEY SENSES TINGLED. Since I live through my emotions, I knew something must've been wrong.

While it was later in my trip, the absolute moment that changed my ENTIRE experience around, was watching my nephew enjoy his first Disneyland visit. Throughout my childhood, Disneyland is where I spent a majority of the best memories with my family. Whenever we go we don't argue, we don't fuss, we just wallow in each others euphoria and enjoy each others company. This is what I wanted my nephew to experience. While, I can't remember being four years old and what emotions I understood...my nephew's face expressed everything I know Disneyland means for me.

Disneyland is called the happiest place on earth. I believe what they, whoever they are, are meant to help us realize that we can find happiness inside ourselves. Putting you in such a happy environment with amazing people all trying to achieve their total happiness, you start to realize that we can do this in our everyday lives. I consistently search for places that I can find happiness and joy in life. And I do believe it is because I always wanted to be as happy as I was when I was at Disneyland. I quite literally saw Disneyland happiness as a goal for my life! (weird)

But seriously, I think what I am trying to say, is that while we are in our darkest times, we should always strive to be something greater. We can always find happiness in ourselves and create our own happiness. When we can find happiness in simple "hellos" or sunrises, or cute phone calls, or whatever, we start to realize that we can only be as happy as we want ourselves to be. We can go through life expecting the worst, allotting ourselves second rate people and experiences, only seeing the bad in situations, just outright cutting ourselves short, and you know if that is what works for you -- then great. But what I strive for is something greater than just 'okay'. I want to enjoy the company of others, I want to enjoy myself in all of my flaws and weirdness, I want to enjoy my life and have it be a product and creator of HAPPINESS. I want to discover the happiest place on earth in MYSELF.