Thankful Thursday - My Word

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There are a couple of things that I wanted to talk about. First, I wanted to tell you the word that I picked as my special word for 2011. I decided to go with "happy". I think happy is a really interesting word when you stop to think about it. One of my greatest life lessons came when I was a teenager, and it revolved around this word. I was really seriously depressed at the time, and feeling like there just wasn't any point to anything anymore. That's a sad place to be. I happened to be taking a psychology class at the time, and the teacher had a lecture about happiness, and it is quite possible that lecture saved my life. In a nutshell, he said that happiness is a choice. Life will throw stuff at you, but ultimately, one of the few things that you have control of is how you choose to react to it. You can choose to be a victim, and let the world beat you up, or you can react another way. Maybe choose to be grateful for the learning experience, be inspired to make a change, be motivated to help others going through the same thing, etc. This totally changed my life for the better.

Now this seemingly simple word is making a powerful impact on my life again. I have really been thinking a lot about how living life in a state of happiness can help you to create more happiness. Law of attraction and all that. If people are bummed out and expecting the worst, that is probably what they will get more of. Conversely, if you come at things from a place of happiness, people (and good stuff) will be drawn to you. We like to support and be around happy folks. 

So for this year, I choose the word "happy" as my guiding inspiration word. I'm going to use it as my GPS. I am going to actively seek out situations, events, and people that make happy easiest to find. Of course it's always a choice, but some situations make it come a little easier than others. I'll be looking for the easy, carefree road towards it. I will make an effort to feel it as often as I can, and I will welcome it, as I draw more of it towards me.

OK, along those same lines, I want to be consciously aware of the good stuff  that surrounds me, so that I can focus on being happy about it. To this end, I want to start doing a Thankful Thursday, and I welcome you to join in if you are so inclined. I'd love to hear what you are thankful for (big stuff, little stuff, trivial stuff, I don't care). So feel free to write your thankful thoughts in the comments. So without further ado, here are some of the things that I am thankful and happy about today.

1. I'm thankful for the friends I have made through this blog.

2. I'm grateful that I discovered how much I enjoy expressing myself through photography.

3. I'm happy that I can look out the window and see an orange glow on everything, as the sun sets. It is so beautiful right now!