Tag: happiness

Categories
Fulfillment Kids/Parenting

Happiness is your responsibility

I was reading an interesting article about Pixar today breaking down the character relationships in Toy Story in a paradigm of parenthood.

So even as, on one level, Woody and Buzz act as children to Andy’s parent, on another they act as parents to Andy’s child: His happiness is their responsibility, and they will resort to the most-extreme measures imaginable to ensure it.

I think that’s something a lot of people believe today, that parents are responsible for their children’s happiness. And yes, absolutely, my children’s happiness does depend a lot on me. If mama isn’t happy, nobody is. And I want my children to be happy.

BUT.

BUT.

I can’t make them happy.

And their happiness is not my top priority.

I think many people of my generation—we poor millennials—were raised in this paradigm. But then we reach adulthood and suddenly we don’t have a cruise director who’s in charge of making us happy. Happiness is not only a choice, it’s a skill.

Happiness is a skill.

It’s one we have to learn and practice and we do need to start in childhood. It’s something we have to learn for ourselves, like tying our shoes or riding a bike or long division. And like those skills, we learn it with tutelage, but heavily through our own effort. If we’re never allowed to struggle or make an effort, though, we won’t learn that skill, and we’ll be wearing the emotional equivalent of Velcro sneakers well into our thirties. (I saw an adult, older than me, trying on Velcro sneakers at the store last week. No, sir. Just no.)

Millennials are seldom accused of being well adjusted or well equipped for life. I think cultural norms of parenting, a backswing from our parents’ parents’ parenting, probably did most of us a disservice. (Mom, Dad, I don’t mean you, or us. Obvs we’re doing okay 😉 .)

Even children are in charge of their own happiness. Making my children happy—while very nice—is not my primary function, and ultimately it will not be up to me. I want to teach my children to be happy. That’s absolutely part of parenting. But let’s not forget our goals as parents: we’re fostering well-adjusted, independent, capable adults, not permanent children who depend upon us for their every happiness.

(That may not be anything like what the author intended in his passing comment on the topic, but I just had this brain wave.)

Categories
Fulfillment

Don’t overthink happiness!

Ryan got a subscription to Fitness magazine, thinking with a name like “Fitness” it would be for both genders. Of course, it’s really not. (I don’t know; are the pictures of half- and quarter-dressed women supposed to appeal to women? I know I don’t work out in underwear.)

I like to read it, though, especially after I saw this blurb on a study from Perspectives on Psychological Science in the October 2011 issue of Fitness (p 105; emphasis mine):
daddy reading to rachel

Women reported experiencing worse moods after reading an article touting the importance of joy and then immediately taking part in a fun activity. “Setting higher expectations for happiness can actually lead you to feel less happy,” says study coauthor Jane Gruber, Ph.D. . . . To avoid that buzzkill, pause to savor little feel-good moments. . . . “Enjoying the activities themselves, rather than because you think they are going to make you happy, is key,” Gruber says.

What do you think? What are your “little feel-good moments”? (You can see one of mine at right!)

Categories
Fulfillment

What is happiness?

Considering the topic of my blog, quotes on happiness tend to stand out for me. I found one of these last week while reading Delirium, which I really liked. The book is about a society where they’ve found a cure for love—and it’s mandatory. It’s illegal to fall in love. Even parents don’t really love their children. If a child gets hurt, their parents tell them to get up—if they respond at all. A mother mentions that her child had pneumonia for two weeks as if she was reporting an appliance breaking down. (Dude, if I didn’t love my kids, I’d be ANGRY I had to take care of them when they were sick. But the Cure takes care of that, too.)

The main character and her best friend are coming up on their turn for the procedure. As they go in for their pre-procedure evaluations, the friend turns to the main character and says, “You can’t be really happy unless you’re unhappy sometimes. You know that, right?”

The main character thinks her friend has kinda lost it, but by the end of the book, she knows that her friend was right.

The other happiness quote I’ve come across this week was on a friend’s blog:

“Everybody in the world is seeking happiness – and there is one sure way to find it. That is by controlling your thoughts. Happiness doesn’t depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions.” – Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People via Clarissa Draper.

Love it!

What are your favorite quotes about happiness?

Photo by Peyri Herrera

Categories
Fulfillment Faith

J is for Joy!

Yeah, I know, J was Tuesday. But I did L Tuesday and now I’m doing J. It’s all good.

Men are, that they might have joy.


Typically, people define the difference between happiness and joy with happiness being more fleeting, and joy being deeper, stronger, and longer lasting.

I think that’s pretty accurate. Joy and happiness can co-exist. I see both in the little moments of motherhood.

I think Joy is built from little moments of happiness, with the assurance (or at least the conviction) that our choices are on the right track—that we’re doing what we should be.

What do you think? How do you define Joy? When do you feel it?

Photo by Collin Mel Cunningham

Categories
Fulfillment

Loving any minute of it

If you’re in Utah, don’t forget to enter the Thanksgiving Point Giveaway! Today is the last day!

It seems like, if we’re happy, we’re supposed to love every minute of our lives. If we enjoy motherhood, we should love every minute of it. And some people really do love every minute of being a mom—so if we don’t, there must be something wrong with us.

I don’t believe that’s true (and I sincerely hope it’s not!).

I say this because sometimes I struggle to love any minute of motherhood, for weeks at a time. Sure, there’s the occasional 30 seconds of bliss as I snuggle a finally-asleep-again-baby, and the flush of pride when Rachel starts crawling at six months or Rebecca successfully counts to 12(!) at <two and a half, and the smiles at Hayden’s first realistic full-body drawing:

Hayden has drawn Rachel. The spots on her tummy show where her diaper leaked.

But those tiny pleasures are so easily forgotten after hours of diapers, whining, crying, screaming, bickering, punishments, refereeing, and motherhood in general—hours where it feels like these tiny tyrants need everything you have to give and more.

When I dare to admit that feeling, I often get comments telling me I should go back to work. Give up, essentially. Focus on what will make you happiest (“giddy with delight”) immediately.

I do still think that what I’m doing as a stay-at-home mom is important. But sometimes, I’m so unhappy on a daily basis that I struggle to feel that what I’m doing is best for me and for the kids.

I do still think that what I said a year ago is true:

Choosing to be happy does not mean that we will automatically be happy all the time. It doesn’t mean we always choose whatever might make us happy right this second.

Choosing happiness means we choose the things we know are most important for our long term happiness.

But I think I need to put more effort into making better choices on a day-to-day basis. I don’t believe we’ll be “giddy with delight” every minute, no matter what we’re doing, but we can try to focus on the things that do make us feel good about motherhood. And it’s about time I recommit to doing that.

When I was good about working on Feeling Fulfilled Fridays, that’s what I was trying to do: focus on those things that I can do to affect the way I feel and we all function. Maybe it’s about time I work on those things again.

I stopped posting about it for several reasons: struggling with these feelings, being too busy, and the deafening lack of response and enthusiasm from 99% of my readership. However, I think that focusing on fulfillment again—refocusing—can help with the first two, since I think they’re really symptoms of the problem instead of side-effects.

The last one . . . well, that one’s up to you. Is there anything I can do to help encourage you to participate in Feeling Fulfilled Fridays?

As a reminder, for FFF we create a list of things that help us feel accomplished, work on a few of those things during the week, and report on Fridays.

What can you do to enjoy your time as a mother more?

And oh yeah, Rachel really is crawling:

Manic smiley photo by Astrid Phillips

Categories
Fulfillment

Happy New Year!

Update: speaking of looking back of the last year, Esther Elizabeth’s Saturday Evening Blog Post is asking for your favorite post of your own for 2009. I chose my post on how to choose happiness. What’s yours?

I honestly don’t think I’ve ever cared less about New Year’s Eve and Day. Ever. My husband spent the evening patrolling the parking lot at a local youth dance (10,000 youth were expected to attend and the organizers solicited several hundred chaperons) so I didn’t even get a kiss.

I’m also so over resolutions 😉 . But I suppose I can still take a look at my resolutions from last year and assess how I’ve done.

  • Better prayer and scripture study (specifically a 30 minute scripture study/prayer time first thing in the morning). Eh, not really. I did do pretty well at making at least a page a day. Mid-year, in line with our local (stake) goal, I decided to read the whole Doctrine and Covenants by the end of the year and finished it in about 3-4 months reading 2 pages a day. I only missed a couple days and I completed the goal, so that was good.
  • Run a 5K. I’m kind of shocked that I actually did this (along with my sister Jaime). I liked being in shape, but apparently not enough to maintain it. I think I’ll do another 5K this year (again, I must be insane), but probably not until September at the earliest.
  • Eat more fruits and vegetables. I neglected this for a while mid-year, but in the fall I had some health issues come up and I had to start eating more veggies again. I wish we could eat a greater variety of vegetables . . . but we already eat almost everything we like. Maybe we’ll have to get more adventurous this year.
  • Do more around the house. Yeah—no.
  • Write tons a reasonable amount (specifically, finished the first draft of my latest MS at the time, get through the first drafts of two more MS and finish revisions on the two 2007 MS). Well, I finished almost all of this—I finished the first draft and revisions on the aforementioned manuscript and also drafted two more in 2009. I never did go back to the first MS from 2008; if I ever do, it will require heavy re-conceptualizing. I actually went even further than the goal—I submitted that one manuscript for publication. Also, I want to revise the resolution: three manuscripts in 365 days (nearly 250,000 words) is more than a reasonable amount for me.

And my most important resolution: I will choose happiness. That, of course, is ongoing, but something I both did well (since I focused on it), and continued to struggle with (especially with the ongoing health issue).

So several of those are things I’ll want to continue to work on this year (maybe). But most importantly, I want to work on the habit of choosing happiness—doing more to foster that attitude on a daily basis.

Resolutions are hard to keep because they’re not the same thing as goals. So this year, this is my attempt to start channeling my most important resolution(s?) into goals. (For a blast from the past, here’s my post on setting goals, specifically for your blog; I’ll have another one on my writing blog on Monday.) One of the things I need is to work on breaking down the amorphous “choose happiness” into more specific, concrete things I can do to remind myself of and strive toward that attitude.

What do you think? How can choosing happiness become a habit?

Photo by Neal (Visiting this local attraction was the fulfillment of one of his resolutions)