You Are Allowed to Be Happy Now

 I know the name of this blog is Forward to Happiness, but I hope that you have understood in my messages that you do not have to wait til the end to find happiness.  Happiness is a journey that just keeps giving.  It is a seed that blooms into a much larger life.  It is not so much a destination as it is a way of life.

You probably have seen a significant change in the overall tone of my playlists and posts, and that is because I am making a conscious effort to be focused upon what I want and not what I lack, what is possible more than what is lost, what I can create and become more than what did not work.  It is part of that positive mindset that I have been talking about and moving towards for months, now.  There is little purpose in focus on anything else.

So, I want to do this post to say in effect that you care allowed to feel happy, now.  Some people feel like they cannot be happy til they find... the one.  And, they might even feel that it is disloyal to be happy on your own without someone, but that is based in a wrong sense of self image and balance.  You were born alone.  You will die alone.  Most of your minutes of your days will be alone, regardless of whether you are in a relationship or not.  THAT is the person to whom you should be spending your most alliegience and priority.  Others will come and go, but you will always have you.

That said, others CAN be a priority, if they are family or close to you and care for you.  But... and this is important... THEY should want you to love you, so your needs are still important.  I do not want you to use that to weaponize an attack on anyone, though.  Because, we do way too much of that.  Life should NOT be about finding fault in others.  Life should be about what it literally is about... your hierachy of needs.  Everyone was born uniqute, and those that live this life have their own needs like a key.  We waste too much time in focus on keys that do not work or waiting for a key that does work, because YOU will always have the master key that will open every door, becase YOU are your first love.

So, take a beat.  Ignore others.  Think of your heart and be there for ie.  Have fun.  Live life.  Love yourself, which will result in love for others.  Hope for the future, and grow into the full being you were always meant to be but felt you couldn't because it didn't resonate in others.  You are worthy.

Live Intentionally

Do you live by observation and intention?  I think a lot of us in our lives want to be living certain ways, but we find ourselves limited or facing pressures that would make it difficult to live the kind of lives that we want.  

I know that I have faced that conflict at different times in my life with different strategies and different results.  I have tried changing my perspective to try to please others and adopt others dreams as primary over my own.  The result of this is that the victories and successes of others make you feel happy for them and sad for yourself for not seeking yours, as well.  That's where boundaries come into play to be able to "choose to cheat" as a book I read in ministry school once said.  The point of that book was that no one can be fully focused on any one thing in your life without cheating other things in your life.  If you, as in this example, focus on the needs of others, you will cheat your own needs.  Similarly, it goes the other way if you only think of your own needs.  There has to be a balance.

But, one thing that must be present is the desire to live with intention.  Having hope and dreams and desires is a risky way to live, as it also invites discontent, frustration, and despair.  But, the alternative to hope is to not live and have less joy.  But, if  you live with intention, it says, I do not have this yet, but I will have it and will make progress towards it. If you have that kind of mentality and determination, it kind of fills in for reality of it existing, already.  That is as I have noted in years past, faith is expectation plus determination.  And, faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.  So, your choice to live with intention fills into the gap to help you find more joy and peace in the meantime.

I hope this post helps you to apply this to your own life and to inspire you to hope and dream and then live intently as you progress on your path.

Forward .. To .. Happiness

Periodically, I do a post to remind others and sometimes myself of the name and theme of this blog.  I began this blog a LONG time ago.  There has been a few times of my having deleted all the posts in times of wanting change but I generally circled back to the same themes, which I will discuss, here.  

FORWARD to happiness - Forward, because that is how we live.  It is not saying that there wasn't happiness in the past.  Indeed, you should have quite a lot of that in your memories and old pics.  I am not saying that you should not value that happiness, because I believe it is very important to protect the good in the past for the good that it was and not try to reframe it.  All of the things in your past were important in teaching you and growing you and just helping you to be.  However, we cannot continue to live there, because those days are no more.  You have to live in today and move towards tomorrow.  If you spend all of your time in the past, you cannot enjoy the present or future or be what you should be for yourself or others.  There is happiness to be had in this day and the days to come, both what you can receive and what you can give to others.

forward TO happiness - Life is a constant journey.  It is important to recognize that it .. and you... are constantly changing and evolving.  Yesterday was interesting, and tomorrow might be exciting.  However, today is the moment where you have to pick up the pen and start sketching or writing what you are experiencing and enjoying and feeling and thinking and living.  Today is the moment of exploration, where you do not have to have all the answers.  You will not.  In fact, today is the day where you get to find the answers by asking the questions of yourself and others.  It is also important to actually BE on the journey.. to leap from your hobbit house and say, "I'm going on an adventure."  And, it will definitely be an adventure.. some good and some bad but all learning and all real.  What a pity it would be to miss it by living "a life standing still" as the character says in Beautiful Creatures.  Finally, it is an adventure forward TO something, not running away from something.  Look for the positive and look up.  It can be a beautiful thing to see.

forward to HAPPINESS -  As I just said, look for the positive.  I am trying to do that more and more, though sometimes I fail.  Consider everything from the positive mindset.  Not... what am I avoiding but what can I gain.  Not... I don't like that but I do like THAT.  Not.. this is what I fear or dislike or tiredness or despair (even though it is important to let feelings flow through you and leave you) but this is what I believe or like or have hope to be and experience.  This is a new day, and tomorrow is not written.

So, I hope this blog post will remind you.. and me.. that you walk with your face forward, because that is where life takes place.. step by step, moving through life and experiencing today as you discover tomorrow.  I look forward to the places your journey will take you. 

Smile Moments in My Week

I'm slightly altering my no personal details rule.  I am still going to be keeping close relationship details of my past or what may come about sometime in the future private, or things related to my family private, unless there is a good thing that all involved has authorized and is safe to share.. that would be a very tight exception on an otherwise non share.  However, I want to start sharing moments that just made me happy in my week that do not fit in the above categories.  So, here's some happy moments in the last weekend and week.

Cooking- I have really come to enjoy experimenting with cooking and making yummy food.  I made a great fish meal two different nights with a different combination of spices and veggies.  I think both were a hit for flavor.

Fitness- I walked a couple incredible photo walks around Gathering Place and Riverside and expanded my gym time to include more and different equipment.  I like feeling healthier and my jeans are now so loose I could probably drop a pant size.

Out and About- I did a couple meetup groups events, including one on Margarita day and had a great margarita and met and heard stories from some interesting people.  After the trivia night, I wandered over and checked out Valkyrie bar for the first time and had a great drink there.

I made a couple playlists that were fun to make and like that my new focus in recent weeks has been more positive in them.  

I saw and shared a lot of great Instagram pics including ones that were inspirational and some that were sexy.  I like being able to openly be as "dirty minded" as I can be.. being single has that liberty.  I'm also less driven to be in a relationship but more interested in just having fun being me.. though I'm not opposed to relationships... someday.

I'm sure I'm missing something, but those made me smile.

There were other not so fun moments like doing taxes ..  ha.  But, doing this post series will be a good addition to my blog.

Made For Community

"You're the best, Devon! But when we're on the field, nobody hears you! They hear the band." Drumline

I am not an authority on much by way of academics, and I will begin directing you to check out what I say with your sources.  However, I have lived a life that has given me much personal experience and observations, which I believe does have value for consideration.  So, I plan to begin to do my blogs with my reflections and ask you to consider it for yourself or research.

One area of personal exploration over my life is the area of seeking to be independent minded and skilled at my own philosophy reasoning and writing.  I've often felt that my own experience not only gave me a good perspective but a responsibility to teach others, so they do not make the same mistakes that educated me.  At times, this has resulted in feeling ignored or to see others or society making the same mistakes, despite my warnings.  Or, I will make a very solid logical case for something or against something.  Yet, it would be disregarded by others following their passions.  Then, I feel that I failed in making a good enough case or in my warning.

Similarly, I will at times try to do this or that, and I often find myself feeling overwhelmed or exhausted by the attempt.  Then, again, I feel like I failed. This week for example, I was trying to solve a problem at work.  I am very good at solving problems at whatever work I happen to be.  Yet, this one was feeling particularly difficult, and I was becoming more and more depressed at not being able to make it work.  When I brought it up to my boss in a meeting, I was not met with criticism but with understanding and directed to reach out to others that would have more information to make it work.  It wasn't... just... about ...me.

So often, I think we do this.  We see something that needs to be done, so we set out to solve it, ourselves.  After all, we reason, I have a lot of education or skill or more to solve this.  My achievement and pride makes me feel like I should be able to handle it, myself. Yet, very often, it is something DESIGNED to be a team problem with team solutions.

Indeed, it is tempting to believe that we are made to be solitary.  We feel that God designed us with specific and unique skills or personality qualities, and we look at those things and say.... I should use these things, and we seek to use them to do things.  However, one thing that I have noted in my own blogs, for example, is that even if you write the BEST BLOG with irrefutable logic, you are just one person.  You MIGHT reach a small number, but that small number is considering your words as the words of just another person.  Yet, if a larger body speaks the same message, it is more readily received.  I can say to someone that God loves them, even with them being LGBTQ or another race or more.  Some might receive that.  They might even appreciate that you are saying it as a Christian or a member of a group.  Yet, it is just words of another human.   However, when I see a church say that God loves someone, that person is being presented with the words of more than just a person.  It carries more weight.  

I am not saying that you should use a religious body as a platform to push your individual beliefs.  Too many use that to use religion as a method of control, and it has been done for centuries.  However, when a church actually speaks and shows the words and actions of the love of Christ, it has powerful effect.  I think that is why the Bible specifically says that we are to be the body of Christ on Earth... all of us.

But, to return to my main point.  Whether it be as a member of a church or a family or a relationship or a band, we all have wonderful talent within us to do great things.  Yet, the God that made us a wonderful individual also made social bonding that happens between them. We were made to be individuals, and those individuals were made to contribute greatly to groups.  We are stronger, when we all have and receive a part in the groups around us.

I am very much an introvert.  However, I am starting to get out more and communicate more with others.  I am seeking out more ways to bring what I have to the larger groups that fall in my social circles.  I believe that is a part of what I was .. as an individual.. made to be.  So, I would challenge you to consider my thoughts here and to consider what groups you have been given with which to share your gifts, and ask yourself.. am I giving to those groups what I was made to provide, or am I pridefully keeping all that to myself, where no one can hear me beating my drum and make little effect.  You can have a much bigger effect in the world when you join your drum to the chord of what is already being played in the world.

 

Step by Step 1 2 3 4

The journey towards happiness is a conscientious one.  It is intentional.  It doesn't just happen, and no one is waiting to give it to you.  Some might give you a moment of joy or a few, but it's not their responsibility for their life.  Everyone is born with the same responsibility... to care for themselves.  So, anyone that expects constant affirmation and mood lifting and gifts from others will eventually find the other person tired of violation of their responsibility for yours, if you are not giving back.

So, how do you progress towards happiness.  I try to alternate in my blog between different things that helps from my experience.  I haven't experienced all kinds of loss or struggle, but I have established some principles that I believe are universal, and those are my focus, generally.  I tend to stay away from things percolating in my head, til I have established they are true.  True is a very good thing for me.. always has been.  So, I'll summarize some principles I have accepted and implemented in my own life, here.

1.  Be real.  This one is hard but necessary.  I do not mean to be negatively pessimistic.  That errors on the same flaw as being overly optimistic.  In both cases, you prevent yourself from taking action to improve your situation.  Just be real about what you can expect in your current situation, what you desire, and what steps would be necessary to get there IN your situation or if not possible changes to your situation that must be made. 

Being real and objective also helps you avoid being paralyzed by fear.  The other day I had to drive to another city for my job for something and carpooled with another worker.  She noted that I wasn't nervous about her driving .. was reading a book in fact.  I explained that i never fear, anymore.  Years ago, I determined fear is mostly useless.  Instead, I just stay ready to respond to whatever happens... adjust.  Logic has been my best friend over my ample challenges in the recent years.

2.  Stop trying to satisfy others' opinions of how your life should look.  Realistically, you probably won't know most of the people you know, now, in 5 years.  If you do know them, they will probably be so absorbed in their own lives that they wouldn't even remember their opinion of yours.  Those that are your closer and remaining friends will want you to follow whatever path would make you happy, because that's what real friends and family would want for you.  So, do that, now.

3.  Make a plan.  Like I said... it doesn't just happen.  So, you need to identify the specific things that needs changing and take steps to make the changes.  Does that require schooling?  Moving?  Applying to new jobs? Going on dates you know will probably fail?  Whatever it is, plan it.

4.  Take risks.  Be real but take risks, and be real about the risks.  I recall applying to over 100 jobs before my first professional job many years ago.  Just statistically there are more people applying than openings at any job.  If you want to win one, it's more about persistence than anything else.  With persistence, you lower the odds that you will eventually find something by stats of multiple attempts working together.  The same is true of other things like dating... though that one is different in that you need to do the next point.

5.  Get addicted to discovery of your own likes and wants.  I know that over my life people would ask what I wanted, and I'd stare back with a blank expression that said... oh... I hadn't actually considered that.  We get so busy trying to fit in and please others that we can entirely lose ourselves.  It takes time OUTSIDE of being a people pleaser..and being willing to become someone offensive to some people.. to really begin to understand what we like.  In my experience, you may discover things you like and that leads to something you like more.. so like steps towards becoming you.  But, you'd never discover that unless you have the personal freedom to explore apart from a society looking to condemn anything that is outside of the established norms.

6.  Choose to focus forward on the adventure of change, rather on the failures of the past.  I made a note of it in my social media the other day, but there was a part in Only Murders in the Building that resonated with this.  Mabel was being asked by a media company to sell the rights of her life's tragedies for a movie.  She was hesitating and explained... what if that's not who I want to be in the future?  I've hit on this in my life at times but only briefly, but it is true and important.  I have in recent years focused way too much time and energy on what did not work in my past and not enough on what the future might bring.  The best pay to predict your future is to create it, as they say.  And, in Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium, the lead character says, "We must face tomorrow, whatever it may hold, with determination, joy and bravery."

So. I'll end this post on that, though I could say more and in more depth.  Look up.  Look forward.  And, step into the future towards your own path in happy discovery.

Nutrients for Happiness

 I should’ve done this post a long time ago, since it’s something that I personally practice.  I learned many years ago that the right nutrients can make you feel better and happier and the loss of them can make you feel incomplete.  It takes an emotional affect, as well.  Sometimes, you may feel like you are down about things or struggling, when all you need to do is eat something and take a vitamin or mineral.  So, I want to go over some of my own things I take and why.

B E D - it’s a funny little combination of letters into a word, but if you take B vitamins by themselves or in a multivitamin combined with vitamin E and D.. you get a peaceful rest and are less anxious over things.. but I’d take B early in the day, so it doesn’t affect sleep.

Calcium, Magnesium, Zinc with D - this is a way to get that D as well, but I break up the daily supplement amount to spread over the day.  It helps with eye calmness, too.  Plus, Zinc helps with colds, but if you take a multivitamin this might become less important.

Iron - Last week, I was feeling very drained and weak one day, but I realized that I hadn’t had any red meat or iron fortified foods in a bit.  Women’s multivitamins often contain it but not men’s, as they assume men will be eating meat.  With I gave blood, it confirmed that yes.. I was on the very bottom of acceptable range.. AFTER I started taking Iron.

Protein - I’ve watched people that were working out and avoiding fat so much that their protein levels were a fraction of what they need in a day.  I have absentmindedly done it myself at times.  But, if you go too low in protein, you not only cut down on your body fuel source but slow your metabolism.. meaning your body isn’t processing what you DO eat to function, too.  This can make you lightheaded or weak in itself and make you feel achy in my experience.  Also, keep in mind that to make full protein from non meat sources, you need both grains and nuts or beats to make complete proteins.

So, I hope this helps you.  I’m not a doctor and this isn’t medical advice, but it’s what I have noticed in my own life.  Also, be careful of the ranges of what is safe to take, and you can adjust that if you know.. for example like I knew from my blood history that I run low on iron and with diet in mind.. but again consult your physician if you have questions.