Deciding to be Happy

I seem to be surrounded by negative energy these days. I will admit that a large part of it is coming from myself and today is the day I'm deciding enough is enough. I've got a good thing going and I need to count my blessings and realise that I have so much to be grateful about.

• I will quit feeling like other people owe me my happiness.
• I will quit depending on other people to bring me happiness.
• I will not let the actions of others impact my will to be happy.
• I will not find happiness in the misery of others, rather I will try to bring more happiness into their lives.
• When I am happy, my home will be happy.

Marcandangel.com have a post listing the 10 ways Happy People Choose to be Happy. Go check it out for more info on what each way is about. I'm just going to start listing the ways I'm going to do it for myself.

1. Choose to be the best YOU can be: Enough with all the comparing myself to anyone else around me in terms of career progression, how I take care of my kids, fitness goals etc. The only question I should be asking myself is 'Could I have done better?' and the answer should be 'NO!'
2. Choose to be around the right people: Hang around people to form the support system to achieve Item No 1. 
3. Choose to focus on what you have and not on what you haven't: Ok so of course there are plenty of people who are doing much better at work/home than me but so what? I don't think I'm the worst-off in the whole world either and there are probably people wishing that they've got what I have, so I should just be thankful in what I have now.
4. Choose a good attitude: I'm naturally a negative-thinking person. My first instinct is always to examine the cons of something and this is usually how I talk myself out of doing something before I even start. I must be more conscious about being positive and to try to look at the benefits of doing something before looking at the negatives. Also I should smile more and be more generous-hearted.
5. Choose to smile more often: I've already said this. Of course not to the extent of being a maniac and smiling at all the inappropriate times, but a smile is charity and can bring light to someone's day. It's also free so what harm could it do?
6. Choose to take care of your body: I've already started doing this with my exercise routine. This year I'm going to work on cleaning up my diet. The instant gratification of junk food is so not worth the long term rewards I'm going to reap from a better looking, healthier body.
7. Choose honesty: I'm going to keep track of my financials, and calories rigidly from now on. I've tried on and off previously and I've always lapsed, mostly because I cheated and either spent too much money or ate too many calories and I guess it was a case of 'If I didn't record it, it didn't happen'. If I can't even be honest with myself, how can I expect others to trust me?
8. Choose to help others when you are able: I think all of us need to do this more. I see the kampung culture being lost and it's quite sad that once-large communities which were very involved with each other have degenerated into small pockets of selfishness.
9. Choose to let go when you know you should: I can't fix everything and when it's time to admit that I've failed at something I should just let it go so that I can concentrate on fixing stuff that I can.
10. Choose to embrace the next step of your life: I tend to drag up old incidences when I get into fights with certain people and I think it's time that I let these things go and never bring them up again. It's long past and it's time to focus on what we can do together for the future.

So yup, sorry. It's a long post. But cathartic for me. I will be back for more :)

See you soon loves!