What is Happiness

We all want different things, need different things, and get different things. I seem to waste a lot of time looking at other peoples blogs, and I catch myself thinking, I wish I had that, or I wish I looked like that, I wish we were at that stage in life, or I wish I would have got that degree or I wish I could go on those cool trips or live in those cool places. In some ways it inspires me to be better.

Last week Shawn and I were looking at friends blogs and we came across one of his old girlfriends blogs. I have always been a tiny bit jealous of this girl, she is just so....... perfect. We looked at it for a minute. Then slowly this horrible amount of jealousy came over me. I didn't want Shawn to see it because I felt like I didn't compare to her. I've though about that girl a few time in the past week and I had this erg to get back on her blog and prove to myself that she wasn't that perfect. So today I got back on and I started to search. I was hoping to find some horribly ugly picture of her or something on there that would make me feel better about myself. But just my luck she didn't have one bad picture, not even the picture of her just after she gave birth looked bad. But I slowly started to realize what an amazingly happy person she was. And instead of me feeling better because I found some dirt on her, I started to feel better because she inspired me. Her gorgeously white smile was because she was happy. She doesn't worry what others think, she doesn't bring others down to lift herself up. She has a spirit about her that I hope I can also have. So thanks "Shawn's Old Girlfriend" for the inspiration to be a better person.

Hey kind of on a different subject but also to do with happiness I think you should all read this talk given by Elder M. Russell Ballard. Click (even if you just heard it) It helped me to see how important my life on this earth is. It also helped me realize how valuable each precious moments is with the ones I love. ( I love you guys, you know who you are)


Author Anna Quindlen reminds us not to rush past the fleeting moments. She said: “The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. . . . I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less”(Loud and Clear [2004], 10–11).