Let's create "all kinds of happy!"

Do Easter Resolutions count? 

 

It’s Easter!  March 31.  I’m still struggling with my New Year Resolutions, and my Lenten sacrifices are down the drain.  What a slug!  Shame on me!

 

I gave this some serious thought this week and realized my resolutions and sacrifices are directed totally toward me -- change MY behavior, make ME a better and stronger person. Some are simply useless.  I resolved for years to become more beautiful, and that was a waste of time.  But isn’t that the kind of thing most of us resolve?  Lose weight, give up coffee, exercise more, write more every day, keep work spaces more organized.  I even resolved a few years ago to take time to iron Fred’s favorite shirts occasionally, and that was really a useless one.  I’ll bet you recognize some of those and could list even more that are all directed at YOURSELF.  That’s why I can slack off so easily.  If my resolutions are personal and I stay mum on the issue nobody knows I’ve broken them by February 1.  And the New Year Resolution Police probably had their budget cut after January 1 so I’m home free to be a slacker the rest of this year. 

 

No.  No, that’s not the way it works.  Resolutions fail, but Lent comes and I start all over again giving up personal behaviors, casting aside things I need to say goodbye to, stopping destructive behaviors, eating foods that don’t support my healthy body, and going places and doing things I have long declared as bad habits.  New Year Resolutions are customarily things I plan to add to my life, and as soon as Lent arrives I give up or cast out bad habits and behaviors. 

Here I sit on Easter, three months into my Resolutions that never left the launching pad for 2013.  And the things I gave up for Lent?  I confess I did not do well in that department either.  I’m truly a work in progress, caught between adding and deleting good and bad habits like the passages I write into or edit out of the books I write.

  

Pitiful me.  Serious dilemmas require serious thoughts and serious solutions.  There are days when I think giving up social networks would be a positive move.  No more reading the griping and gossiping, moaning and groaning.  I could delete the news app on my phone so I will not be tempted to check up on the same squabbles and power struggles in Washington from day to day.  Should I skip meetings and gatherings where everyone focuses on the negative?  My brow’s been furrowed most of this month on my sad dilemma. But as I reached the point of adding more wrinkles to my already over-landscaped face, I had an “Aha Moment.”

“Jump out of yourself,” a mysterious voice said to me. “Focus on others.  No more useless New Year Resolutions.  No more lame sacrifices for Lent.  “Make a plan that makes other people happy,” the voice inside of me continued, “and you’ll discover it feeds your happiness at the same time.  And everyone’s happiness will create your discipline to stick to the plan.

One of my granddaughters said recently, “Let’s have a day today of all kinds of happy.”  I will love that statement forever, so I decided to start an epidemic.  Or an explosion.  Whatever works! 

Come join me!  Let’s start an epidemic of “all kinds of happy” together.  Every day we’ll each email, text, call, or hand write an upbeat, happy message to one person on our correspondence or contact lists.  On an especially frantic day or during times when life just isn’t going very well, a simple cyber smiley face may be the perfect kind of happy one of your family members or a friend needs to see. 

  

Could this create chaos of happy for our world?  Will “way too-serious people in high places” wonder what we’re up to?  I surely hope so.  I hope they come find me so I can get them involved in our plan to create “all kinds of happy” for our world that spends far too much time searching for joy and struggling to survive. 

Let’s not waste time.  Get started today.  Send a happy note to just one person each day and let me know what’s happening at your end of the line.  Cheers and special wishes for days of “all kinds of happy” to everyone!

Terri Clamons, author
Cocaine Campus, The Toy Room, and Corporate Prince,

Suspense, adventure, and intrigue with a light love story.

The Church Mouse That Flew, a story of learning to pray for children and adults

Jenny And Her Backyard Zoo, a story of Peacemaking for children and adults

Crosswise Charlie, a story of building lasting friendships for children and adults

All 6 books available as paperbacks and ebooks at Amazon,

       listed under Terri Clamons 

You are invited to visit my website: http://terriclamons.com

Please read and comment on my blog: http://blogbyterri.blogspot.com