Every morning I wake up truly excited to jump out of bed and greet the day. I am not kidding every morning I wake up happy! I can honestly say I have joy inside. I have dealt with so many people over the years I have begun to understand that not everyone does. Not everyone can be happy. It is ingrained in me a part of my beingness. I would describe my ability to be happy like a floater on water; you can push it under the water but it will always jump back to the surface and float on top. That is just like me. As does everyone – things happen in my life and sometimes it gets me down but only for a brief moment. I always get reset very quickly to happiness.

I have been wanting to write about happiness for a long time. I have been researching happiness and what it means to be happy for a while now and let me tell you that there is so much information on the internet about happiness that you become ‘happy’ just to researching ‘happiness’. Talk about a ‘feel good strategy’. There is so much to write about on the subject of happiness and so many different angles to focus on that I could never cover everything I want to say in this one article. This is going to be one of many articles on ‘happiness’.

So lets get started. In this one I am going to focus on what makes me happy and why I wake up every day happy.

I found a great definition for happiness, I am not going to use the oxford dictionary because it is too simplified and really means nothing.

“Happiness can be defined as an enduring state of mind consisting not only of feelings of joy, contentment, and other positive emotions, but also of a sense that one’s life is meaningful and valued.” (Lyubomirsky, 2001)

That is exactly what I feel when I wake up. Every single day something happens usually during a conversation with someone or a call that I get or something I read on the internet that my little red happiness button inside gets pressed and lit up inside.

There are things that bring me joy and happiness – like the smell of fresh cut grass, the peaceful quiet moments of reflection and inspiration while I am doing the dishes, the sun shining in one area of the sky while watching the dark clouds in another. The beautiful contrast of nature. Springtime, listening to the birds chirp early every morning when I wake up and watching the rabbits run freely, carelessly and playfully around in our neighborhood as they think no one is watching them. Getting the most meaningful and heart felt hugs from the ones I love. Music, music,, music and oh did I mention music. All the choices of clothes and shoes I have to wear (and yes I am very much a ‘girlie’ girl). The choice of different styles and colours, makeup hair and nails, fashion and design make me feel happy. Christmas and the thought of Christmas. Writing, reading and designing. Working in my office, my work and my career. Being held every night in bed by my husband. The latest technology and not because of the item itself but because of what value and meaning it adds to my life. There is so much more that brings me happiness that I probably could write to infinity and beyond and not stop.

“Happiness is a state of being not doing”

Happiness gets built upon happiness. You can stack it and here’s how. I started working out again at the gym (Millennium) and this is bringing me such happiness on multiple levels (happiness stacking up) and here’s why. Everyday I keep track of my workouts in my smart phone but recently I discovered that there are bar codes on each machine and all I have to do is download the app and scan the barcode. I put in my reps and weights and voila – my work out is recorded. Not only that- it shows you the previous workout that was recorded. I have done this manually for years and now it is all completely organized in my app. Organization and being organized makes me happy. For this reason alone I am excited to go to the gym. I love technology, I love organization, I love style from the organization, I love the way my skin feels after the gym, I love the way my body looks after the gym. All these things make me happy so now I have ‘stacked happiness’ all around going to the gym. It makes me happy on multiple levels. This is a great reason to go the gym.

There is an old proverb that says, “In order to be happy, you need someone to love, somewhere to go, and something to do.” I am never without all three of these things in my life so it is no wonder that I wake up happy.

After every workout on the elliptical machine it displays what you accomplished in your workout, your calories burnt, the time, the distance, your average heart rate and how many kilowats you created but most importantly as soon as that screen is done the machine displays the most important quote and it says, “It is what we Live for!”

What do you life for? Answer that simple question and you will have happiness in your life.