Back in February I saw a good friend of mine Betsy (who's also an up and coming country artist so check her out on twitter.com/betsylanemusic and iTunes!) tweeting about a 100 happy days challenge. I was curious and she tweeted the link so I thought I'd look into it: http://100happydays.com. The mission of the challenge is to find something that makes you happy in every day of the challenge and post a picture of it. At that point I had been stressing and realized happiness in the little things was exactly what I needed. A few minutes later I signed up with the site, created a separate instagram dedicated to my happy day posts and I was all ready to go. Well it's 100 days later and they're not kidding when they call it a challenge. For the most part I was able to find things that made me smile everyday. But we all have those days when nothing seemed to be going too well for us and on those days I had no idea what to post. What I loved about this challenge though was that even if you do have those days, there are more days that so much good can happen. It's the bad days that you really have to work at and think "there must have been something I was happy about," It forced me to consciously find something good in everyday, even the bad ones. Even on the days when I couldn't smile I made a point of finding something. I made the extra effort to put my happiness first and to acknowledge that even if nothing special happened that day there's always something to smile about, if only for a brief moment.
I was also extremely pleased to see that so many of my friends participated in it as well. The fact that we were all making the choice to be happy every single day was truly inspiring. The challenge wasn't a contest. It wasn't meant to be a competition. It was made for us to revel in our happy moments. To revel in the little and the big things we experience everyday. We don't always take the time to appreciate everyday things like a favorite class we're taking, or a song we've recently become addicted to listening to over and over. This challenge was truly a challenge. It forced me to capture the moments of my everyday routine, to really think about how I felt and how to take hold of those feelings. It challenged me to embrace the possibilities of what each day could bring and how it could turn out. I think I'll keep that lesson with me despite the fact that the challenge is over. It's important to take a moment out of the day and acknowledge the moments you were happy and you couldn't wipe the grin off your face. Life's all about those moments. They're rare, and sometimes very brief, but life's too short and I'm too young to not be happy all the time. I don't want life to pass me by and realize I spent more time complaining than I did laughing or smiling. I over-think and I over-analyze but in the end life happens. It goes in the direction it's supposed to and I'm starting to understand that if I can control anything, it's me and my happiness. Never forget the essence of your spark!
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