Smile: it increases your face value

Contrary to my decision earlier this year to let happiness quotes find me, I decided to look for an image to add to this blog's final post. And I found one which gives the title to the post with a sub-title: be happy, keep smiling and a pre-title: life will be better that kind of summarize my whole living happily thing for 2011.

I am terrible for remembering my achievements. That's why probably one of the reasons why I get down every now and then. So I need to keep record of them. Or I need someone who loves me reminding me of them. That's why I kept my 2011's New Year Resolution simple: Be Happy.

So, what is the verdict? Overall I can say I succeeded. 2011 it's been a happy year for me. Of course there has been dark and sad moments. But I think I'm in the right path to change my life's outlook or my outlook on life, whichever you prefer.

But unlike 2011, being happy is not over. It's a continuous assessment in the school of life. (I love that academic term in Spanish: "evaluación continua"!) It takes effort. Constantly. Well, more than effort I would say practice. A conscious practice. And then it becomes habit, second nature.

Enough rambling. My New Year's Resolutions for 2012? Ha! That's a good one. I'm trying to keep it simple, so only one thing for me. The problem? To choose it. I guess one of the next things that I need to address in my life is fear which stops me (& everybody else) from fulfilling our own potential. Or so I hear. So even if I AM afraid and a bit skeptical that I'll "bump" into fear quotes as much as I did with happy ones, I won't be afraid and I'll go for it: 2012 The Year of Living Fearlessly. What do you think?

And even if I fail, and I'm scared to death, I'll try not to forget 2011 and I'll smile through it!
There you go!

New Year Resolutions

I know, I know, the first month of the year is almost over. But there is no time like the present, right? So here it goes... this year I have resolved to be happy.

I never really cared much for New Year Resolutions, didn't really see  the point. But a dear friend of mine, year after year, got pretty excited about sharing hers & enquiring about mine.

So bit by bit, year after year, I started to think about them. Usually, I could hardly keep them up for more than a few weeks, a couple of months at the most. Good intentions and all, but hell is full of them, isn't it? Most years they would be your usual stuff: read more, exercise more, eat better, watch less TV, keep in touch with friends...

This year, however, as I started to rack my brain for ideas, I couldn't possibly come up with anything at all. What I need? What I want? What I should do? Blank. Blank. Blank, blank, blank. Nothing. Zilch. Zero.

Then, suddenly, on New Year's Day afternoon, this thought started to form. All I could come up with was: all I want is to be happy. How simple is that? This year I decide I'm going to be happy. Hence, the title

And then, something interesting happened. Since I decided this, I started coming across songs, quotes, proverbs that talked about being happy, about happiness in general. Laws of attraction? I don't know. Call it what you want. But it's happening, honest.

So I decided, other than being happy, I was going to collect those. I wasn't going to go searching for them, I just would make notes of them as they came up.

That's how the idea of this blog came up, the collection of the happily found happy thoughs.

Enjoy!