Friday, January 6, 2012

Looking for Happiness in 2012

I spent a lot of 2011 looking for happiness in my life. I did a lot of things to try to find it. I read sections of many Buddhist books. I took a step back and tried to change my perspective on many things. First, my job, for example, there has been an extremely low working morale. I believe this didn’t happen over night, in fact many changes came about and more than fifty employees in my department transferred, quit for better opportunities, moved to other cities where other jobs were waiting for them. I sent out over 100 curriculum vitas to try to find a better opportunity myself.


I have tried to overlook the lack of not finding a single full-time job and only scoring less than half a dozen interviews as a sign that there must be some reason - I am not supposed to leave this job. This was one of the most discouraging things to find out. I have found numerous part-time faculty positions, which have brought a lot of light to my situation but at the same time feels more like a tease of what I really want in life.


Despite my lack of success in finding another job, I tried to find positive in what I do daily. I recently helped senior management on a small team, develop core values for our department and I am hoping to help initiate more change but corporate America moves slower than a turtle and my patience is dwindling.


So with my heightened work load and higher income – I have felt a lot more like we should be living a higher quality life but this more expensive lifestyle has not brought me any happiness. Instead, I have found myself more disappointed because I keep comparing my own life to others who have it better than me. What a waste, I know this is completely against how I should be behaving but yet, it’s this hurdle I can’t seem to pass.


“If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” -Oprah Winfrey


My relationship with my husband has taken a turn for the better, which is something I have been very happy about – yet I still feel like I’m the flat tire in the relationship… slowing everything down. If I could somehow not let life’s negativities distract me from what really matters I think my perspective of life would be more positive. Overall, what I did manage to learn in 2011 is that while looking for happiness, the things that made me the happiest … weren’t past my own front door.


We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have. ~Frederick Keonig


My resolutions for this year are to focus on becoming more positive through recognizing the gifts that I already have and appreciating them while I still have them.


2 comments:

Carrie L said...

Good quotes, Jennifer. It really is true that there is happiness in appreciating what you have and believe it or not when you do that your happiness grows even more. I used to be quite unhappy about ALOT of things but I find myself happier about all kinds of things, and still unhappy about some things, but overall more happy than I was five or ten years ago. I don't think you "find" happiness, you just allow yourself to FEEL happiness. It's there if you let yourself feel it, regardless of what's going on. Our society is having an EPIDEMIC of unhappiness and thinks it's a crime to be happy when there is so much tragedy going on. My perspective is, if I live my life being miserable and unhappy all the time because of all the tragedies in the world than I am doing No ONE any good and a complete disservice to myself and others. We need more positive minded people to counteract all he negativity. Thankfully there are alot of happy positive constructive smart people in the world, and we all focused on that rather than stupid critical judgmental things about other people are society would be getting along much better (in my ideal world anyway).

Carrie L said...

Btw another favorite website/internet radio station of mine is Hay House Radio. You can find all kinds of podcasts on self-help and positive advice/discussions on all kinds of topics. http://www.hayhouseradio.com/
The current week's shows are free but you can sign up for a year subscription to the archives for only $40 and you have access to every podcast which is in the hundreds if not thousands. I've downloaded quite a few from my favorite radio hosts. they are very uplifting, especially if you have a bad day. the great thing about Hay House is although many of the radio shows have a spiriual perspective, they are not associated with any particular religions but support all types of belief systems. They are very progressive.