Happy: day 21

I had a brain wave on this topic tonight. See, while there is apparently research to show that using muscles to lift the corners of your mouth actually makes you feel happier, giving myself a wry smile every morning has not been doing much for me.

Tonight, the hubby had a friend over. We all went out for dinner (with the baby), then to Starbucks, and on the way home, stopped to rent a video game they spent the next 2 1/2 hours playing. It just made me think about how sad it is that I don't really have friends to invite for an evening of nothing. I sort of envied the fun; the happiness my hubby was enjoying.

So I decided that I should start a habit of doing something every day that makes me happy. It could be big, like buying a pair of shoes; or something really simple, like closing my eyes and focusing all energy on listening to a 5-star song on my iPod. But then, I realized that I must already be doing some simple things that could make me happy, if only I were aware of them.

Like tonight, after a little while in Starbucks, Hubby & Friend decided to go to EA Games to buy a video game (their disappointment there led to the Blockbuster run). While they were gone, my daughter and I were getting some subtle attention in the Starbucks, and my baby was being pretty damn cute. But I missed the happiness of the moment because I was trying to get her to eat, and when she refused to finish her bottle, I thought she'd fall asleep, but she kept fighting that too. I was okay giving up on that, but even then, it never occurred to me to wonder if I was happy in that moment.

So now, rather than making a habit of manufacturing moments of happiness, I would like to just write down one event or moment in each day that made me happy -- or would have if I'd been paying attention. And my goal for this habit is to start enjoying the moments of happiness as they happen instead of just in retrospect at the end of the day.

Hubby has been studying Buddhism for a while, and one of the keys he has found there is Mindfulness. While Happiness and Mindfulness are not the same thing, I think that happiness is easier to find when you are being mindful. So I guess that's what I'm working toward, without the background of Buddhism (which I wouldn't mind knowing).