By Joe Santos Jr.
I’m choosing happy. If “happy” is a choice then feeling “unhappy” must be one too. Or is it? Is either one of them our choice? Or are there simply chemicals within the brain that trigger emotions either way? I’m sure that with as many questions as there are, there are twice as many answers and theories as to how and why. I’ll leave those to the hundreds of “paid professionals” who spend most of their lives walking themselves, and other people, through the “what ifs” of life.
For me, it’s a choice… as simple and as complicated as that sounds… a choice, because my experiences in life have been many and vast. With all of its’ privilege and blessings, there have been twice as many challenges, disappointments, and regrets. It’s funny to think how it could be as simple as just that, but for me it is. Think about it. Choosing happy! Have you met people who choose to be sad? Choose to be angry, alone, frustrated, aloof, cruel, irresponsible, unavailable, insensitive, and miserable? Would, or could, anyone want to live this one and only life (as we know it) as such? Yet, so many do!
For every problem, there is a solution. But in order to recognize either, it takes acknowledgment, work, responsibility, and the commitment to living your best life amidst the struggle of choosing “either” the problem (unhappy) or the solution (happy) every day! How we go about it is the real question and challenge.
We are all different, but if we are healthy spiritually, mentally, physically and emotionally, can we make choices for ourselves, and find ways to our happiness? I’m not referring to the material things, or physical attributes, or monetary traps that pre-occupy us long enough to lift the “grey veil” within us that ultimately prevents us from seeing what true happiness looks like, tastes like, smells like, or feels like.
Happiness is a reflection. It’s what or whom you see yourself in, and find delight from. It could be a time, a place, a song, a moment, a poem, a person, your pet, your children, yourself.
The sun, the moon, the stars, the past, the present, the future… all that you can dream, all that you want to remember, this is the happiness I choose, and for this reason, to me, it’s a choice. I can look at life the way I feel the sun… warm, bright, greeting me each day and lighting my path to color and beauty. Or, I can choose to see the eclipse, that dark cold place with nothing but doubt, disappointment, anxiety and the ultimate fear that no light will ever be bright enough to help me see my path out.
So if “happy” is a choice, then the opposite is too. Life greets us each day without agenda. We can get up with as much as we can muster to greet it with a smile, with hope and gratitude, that it is a new day. Or we can make excuses as to why it takes too much to simply be and throw the covers over our heads and wait until the next one. Yep. For some, that’s a choice too. For me, I say, “No thanks! I’m choosing happy!”
