Less Unhappy

As many of you know, I have declared 2022 my year of "happiness" and "joy." As you may also know, I began the year under a cloud of depression that made it difficult to even imagine those concepts, much less embrace them. Thankfully, I have managed to pull myself out of that pit and am in a place of true peace in my mind. 

There has never been a time when I believed happiness and joy would just fall into my lap or that it would be a once-and-done type of situation. I know they must be pursued and chosen every single day. Honestly, I still struggle to give myself permission to seek them--much less demand them--so long has been my habit of believing they weren't attitudes I was entitled to. But I know (though I forget and fall into old habits sometimes) that this is for sure what 2022 has for me and that I deserve every bit of it. Unfortunately, there is not always a clearcut path to happiness and joy, and I'm honestly not really sure if I would always know them if I saw them. So, it's interesting that, rather than just throw happiness and joy at me, this year is sort of backing into it by showing me things that don't make me happy and that don't create joy in my life. And I suddenly have a burning desire to eliminate those things from my life, even if they are things I have tolerated for months or years. 

Just this week, I have taken several steps in that direction. I have gotten rid of my chipped and stained dishes, which made me sad every time I looked at them, and replaced them with new dishes that feel like a pleasure to use. I discarded my cracked recycling bin and replaced it with a fully intact one. I threw out some dead houseplants that I was hoping against hope would have a second chance at life. And I ripped up my warped, eye sore (and foot sore every time I tripped on it) of a deck that was acting as a hideout for what I'm sure was one of the largest rat kingdoms of all time. 

I cannot proclaim to you that any of these acts necessarily made me happier, and in fact, they sort of seem like small, silly things to focus on in the grand scheme of the pursuit of happiness. But, here's the thing: they all made me less unhappy, which seems like a very good step in the right direction and one I will gladly take. Who knows, maybe the secret to a happy life is simply to become less unhappy in whatever circumstances you find yourself in, changing those things you can change and accepting the rest.