Happiness is an Attitude...Do the Work

Each Sunday I sit with myself and reflect on what I’ve learned about myself that week or what is a driving theme in my journey of living positively.  This past week I just couldn’t muster the energy to write.  I’ve been struggling lately with my inner four-year old.  You know the one that has a temper tantrum when things don’t go her way?  For years, I’ve been struggling with a painful injury that finally needs addressing.  I’ve bitten the bullet and agreed to surgery….. and ever since this decision; I’ve been a cranky, whiny mess.  All week long, I have been the anti-Dena.  I’ve been focusing on the pain and focusing on what’s to come and it’s been dragging my under. 

What’s interesting, is that while I am usually the family cheerleader, my darling husband sent me a quote mid-week that was such a “Dena quote’ I promptly wrote it on my chalk board in my kitchen.  I’m staring at it right now and it is making me laugh.  While I wrote it down with the intention that I would absorb it like a mantra and live it, I let it rest on the surface and just resisted it all week.  I was too busy concentrating on my misery.  Here is the quote:  “Happiness is an attitude.  We either make ourselves miserable or happy and strong.  The amount of work is the same.”  Let that one sink it a bit – the amount of Work is the same.  It takes such work to be in pain and to complain and to be a whiney pain in the ass.  I’ve spent so many years making such an intention to live positively and with kindness and you know what?  It is work.  I’d like to say I am an angel or a saint and it is just effortless, but sometimes it takes effort.  Sometimes I don’t want to be the bigger person.  Sometimes I don’t want to put forth the energy to do what’s beneficial for someone else…. but in the end, it’s what feeds me.  It is how I need to live my live and, selfishly, it brings me an immense amount of joy.  Being mean and cranky and in pain is just draining the life out of me.  I know I will have a long road of it ahead and I can deal with it if I remember that the work is the same.  I think we all can agree that we’d rather live happy and strong, than miserable – I’m “simply positive” I’m ready to put one foot in front of the other and start again.