Sunday 5 May 2013

SPARKLY HAPPINESS PROJECT DAY 5!!


So…It’s the fifth day of The Sparkly Happiness Project.

How’s your week been?
For me, it’s been a week of opposites.

Great days full of huge strides. Jobs done galore. Attitude happy. No sweary words out of my less than ladylike lips. Husband choosing to exercise (we’ve been after him for health reasons for quite a while)

Grumpy days. (for instance this afternoon I went off on a verbal bender and lost it big time with my family. Not so successful a day. Luckily it’s still EARLY days.)

BUT: One of my overriding feelings this week has been one of gratitude.

If you are miserable, stop looking inward, start looking outward. EVERYTHING, and I literally mean everything, is relative.

Yep. There are people whose homes feature on Cribs. They have six cars, holiday abroad constantly,  their clothes closets are bigger than my whole house. People who have more money than sense or taste and couldn’t you just put that to better use than they do?….blah BLAH blah.

There are also children who dig pieces of plastic out of shit infested dumps in India for 12 hours a day, barefoot with no gloves on, just to make enough money to live in a one room shack with a dirt floor and their 17 brothers and sisters sharing the same bed in shifts.

My health isn’t great and it limits me in unpredictable ways. That probably fits some of you as well. But I know several people (more than I care to admit) who have cancer. They are DYING, some of them quite young. What right do I have to complain when I am so blessed?

If most of our waking thoughts are WHY ME? POOR ME? THE WORLD OWES ME XYZ (fill in as you like)…I will guarantee that only one thing will come out of it:
               YOU WILL NEVER BE HAPPY. NOT EVER.

Most of you reading this will be nowhere close to either end of the spectrum. You will be blessed with enough to meet your needs, even if you only manage monthly with one thin dime left over and not much fun between pay days. Some of you will have much more.

But think about it. In all honesty, most of us spend money we don’t have to buy things we don’t need, to impress people we don’t really care about. Many of our stressors are of our own making.

One of the biggest challenges of our generation is to learn how to become
HAPPY WITH WHAT WE HAVE.
Life could be much simpler, our problems halved, if we worried more about what we DO to IMPROVE the lives of others (and NOT necessarily in material matters), and LESS about what we HAVE.

I’m not suggesting in any way that it’s wrong to strive to improve yourself or your lot, in educational & financial terms, because this whole project is about becoming more fulfilled on a personal level. But it’s how we define personal  fulfilment and what we do to achieve that that matters most. 

Right now is the OLDEST you have ever been, and the YOUNGEST you will ever be.

What are you spending your time and energy and life on? Getting  or giving?

William James said:
The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.

HE WAS TALKING ABOUT YOU. (and me)

Stop looking in the mirror and under the microscope, examining every little minute reason you have to be unhappy. Start looking out at the world and thinking about all the positive ripples you could make in the lives of others around you. Start with the people under your roof, in your neighbourhood, start anywhere.

JUST START.

It is my goal to perform one OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE act of service for another person each week. I want this to cover my 4 month project, but I can guarantee something.
It’s just as easy to develop GOOD HABITS as it is bad ones. All it takes is dedication. If you put the same amount of time into it, it’s yours. I expect that at the end of the 4 months I might be addicted to the warm fuzzy feeling that performing service for others can bring.

What are you dedicating your energy to?

Who’s with me? If you need some inspiration, watch the film PAY IT FORWARD. Bring tissues.

So, go forth, multiply.
good works!!!!!…I meant MULTIPLY GOOD WORKS!

now get outta here. go make someone smile.
you'll be glad you did.

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