If you're actually "happy" - raise your hand.

As is to be expected with the start of a new year, all of my favorite magazines and websites are talking about the resolutions we're all making and the changes we vow will actually stick this year.  As I've rolled my eyes, passing by the status quo articles, I've been somewhat shocked to see articles that focus more on being "happy."  Not the, "Lose 10 pounds to be your best self" happy, but real, true, momentary bliss. 

These articles, like this one, spoke to me on such a deep level.  They were honest about the fact that as Americans, and really just humans, we are finally realizing that happiness isn't something we can attain.  It isn't a box we can check once we've accomplished our top a, b and c goals.  Happiness is a moment in time - it is not an "if" but a "when."  It's that cliche moment where all your stars have aligned - be it missing the train that inevitably makes you late for work by only a half a block (like I didn't today), having your best friend from high school randomly hit you up on facebook/email with a memory that makes you giggle, or your significant other having dinner on the stove when you walk in from work.  These are all just moments, they are all small things that really don't add up to be one big thing, but they all bring happiness.

The real truth, the one our parents try to tell us from the beginning but we just don't get until we're here now, is that life is hard.  Life is brutal.  It will rain, it will pour, your basement window will explode randomly one night at 2am while you're out of state and your insurance won't cover a dime of it.  But, no matter how terrible the big things are, there are always things that make you happy if you allow them to.  My focus lately, as I've been trying to correct some of my own character flaws and realign how I think of things, needed this slap upside the head.  I need to be reminded every day that maybe I'm not happy every single second, but that I can absolutely be present in those little moments that bring me happiness. 

Do you take the time to enjoy those little moments or do you brush them off as "how it should be" and that you deserve more of them?

My new reality is going to be that I deserve every moment of happiness I get.  And if that makes me happy overall, then I'll take it.