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.

Wednesday 1 May 2013

SPARKLY HAPPINESS PROJECT DAY ONE!!!!




So…here we are. DAY ONE of   THE SPARKLY  HAPPINESS PROJECT.

(are any of you joining me??? C’mon you know you want to!)

In preparation for today I have done a little soul scratching and self-analysis. I have shortened the lists of things that are driving me crazy about life, myself & the universe, and the list of things that make me happy. And I have a game plan for the next four months.

We’ll have to have a suck it and see approach, I guess. None of this is guaranteed to soak up this festering pit of gloom in my stomach, but as stated in last blog…I AM A PROACTIVE person, so here’s to a gallon of proactive with my slice of cake.

Things that bring the SMILE factor back:

1.      Being organised. This is a sore point for me as I’m into the red zone when it comes to Adult ADHD, and am about as organised as a troupe of drunken monkeys on a day trip to a disco. Hence constant frustration with myself.

2.      Having fun time with my kids & husband & friends.

3.      Attending church & serving other people.

4.      Being a creative person.

5.      Eating healthy & sleeping enough. Exercising when possible (grr…MS!)

I know that seems a short list, but that is what all the nonsense, noise and bother boils down to in its simplest forms. Everything great usually falls into one or more categories of the above points.

 Things that cause gathering storm clouds:  

1.      Disorganisation, clutter, procrastination.

2.      Kids & adults constantly picking at each other, grumbling over nothing.

3.      Overtiredness and or poor health.

4.      Aggravation with other people’s poor (IMO) choices.

5.      Wasting time.

Again, it all boils down to those things in simplest form.

Some of those things I realise I have no control over…which is an issue that I will be working on.

A few things I have done or am started just in the last week:

1.      Put a sock bag on the door knob in the upstairs hall. We never have enough clean MATED socks. It’s that bad that I have an odd sock basket which I’ve nicknamed the Pit of Eternal Despair. It’s full to the top and seething with snakeloads of unmatched socks. Now all dirty socks (& undies) go straight into this new bag and I don’t have to chase them as much. It’s only been about a week, but so far, successful. Small thing, I know, but small things often fix big stressors.

2.      Made a list of all unfinished jobs in the house that are making me crazy, and figured out which ones I can do without help from taller or stronger people. I will systematically whittle at this list over the summer. Starting with stripping the turf on the only remaining  patch of grass in the back yard, so that my son can wheel barrow bucket loads of decorative Yorkshire stones to cover it and we can put pots and a bench on it! No more mowing.

3.      Organised some service opportunities to get me out of the ME ME ME rut I’ve been in.

4.      Booked the dog groomer for our furball of a Border Collie. (less hair =less housework!)

 

So, there we have it. Day One. Only 122 days to go!!

Can I go back to bed yet?