How To Be Happy

There’s a novel idea! Be Happy. Easy enough to say isn’t it? I’ll tell you a little secret that most people either don’t know or don’t believe. Here it is. Each and every morning that you wake up take a moment to decide, right there and then, what kind of a day you would like to have.

That’s it. You can actually decide or choose to be happy. Set the tone of the day right away before something happens to deter you from your goal. Once you have made the decision, stick with it.

Something happened to me the other day that almost knocked me off my feet. If I hadn’t already decided to have a great day I would have been really peeved. (Mildly put, of course.) I was about to explode when I looked at the situation from another point of view and loudly proclaimed, “HAH”. That sounded enough like a laugh to force me to say it again and again until I was actually laughing.

Needless to say, that really took the sting out of the situation. Laugh your tears away. It gets rid of them for good.

If you pause for a moment and think of sitcoms on TV that make you laugh and think again about YOU being in that very same scene having the catastrophe happening to you, you probably wouldn’t laugh at the time. BUT, you might laugh later in the telling of the story.

I love well done slap-stick. One of my favorite movie scenes from “My Cousin Vinny” is when Vinny, played by Joe Pecci, gets out of his convertible after spending the night sleeping in the car in the rain. This was the morning of the day that he had to appear impeccably dressed in front of the judge. Needless to say as soon as his foot came out of the car it landed in a huge mud puddle. For a second he was airborne and then landed flat on his back in the mud. I fell off the couch laughing so hard.

To make matters worse, when he tried to stand up he only flipped over face first in the mud so there wasn’t a clean speck on him. The only way to avoid dieing on the spot is to laugh long, loud and hard at yourself. I would be willing to wager that they had a grand time filming that segment.

Before you pooh-pooh the whole idea, try it. It only has to work once, even for half a day, for you to try it again. What’s the alternative? And why, in the name of heaven, would you purposely choose a rotten day?

Be brave. Take a stand. Why get yanked around by a chain that someone else is holding and pulling? If you are here living a life you may as well enjoy yourself. It’s been said that laughter is the best medicine. It is the cheapest and is guaranteed to make you feel better.

I don’t know about you, but, I’m having a great day! I woke up on the right side of the grass.