“My future mother-in-law gave me one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received. She told me to find lowercase “h” happy. I didn’t really understand what she meant at first as the past few years of my life have been filled with uppercase “H” Happy: graduating college, getting engaged, traveling, and studying at Oxford. But, not every day can be scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef. Most days are filled with a daily commute to the living room, eight hours at work, figuring out what movie to watch, and endlessly cleaning up the kitchen. Now that I’ve settled into a more mundane 9 – 5 lifestyle, I find myself struggling to find my lowercase “h” happy. Instead of planning big trips, I get my excitement from picking out which fruit I’ll use in my smoothies for the week.
One thing I’ve found helpful is giving myself all sorts of goals to work towards. While my career goals are long-term, my workout regimen and craft projects give me small- and medium-length goals to work towards. And that’s what satiates the little child in me who wants nothing else, but to be happy.”
Feels good to read about this beautiful perspective of life? Well, it definitely does and the way our first guest, Charlotte has put it in words, absolutely holds an applause of appreciation. This topic ultimately sums up how we look onto life and things associated with it. While some long-distance relationships find their happiness in just knowing the fact that they are there for each other. Whereas there might be a few couples living next to each other, but still wish for a little more of everything. This is human nature, the more we get, the more we crave for. Time never stops and there will never be an optimum. Things will keep flowing the way they are meant to be- people will come and go, destinations will change, priorities will alter with some new additions and lots of deletions. The only thing that should matter is how you choose to sail through this journey of life. It is not always about huge milestones and their celebrations, it is actually about the pure satisfaction to make it through a tough day at work and everyday smiles to be with your loved ones. It is about that crazy excitement to get dressed up for the Diwali party and about that proud feeling to submit the thesis on time. It is about planning the office event more than the success of it, it is about the sweat and time you put in to get into shape than the ultimate selfie with those biceps, it is about those any day and everyday random plans with your buddies than waiting for that ultimate trip to Goa. It is ALWAYS about these little moments wherein we tend to forsake our lowercase “h” happy.
Beginning today, let’s try finding our lowercase “h’ happy and the recipe to this alluring way of living life is to just add a tablespoon each of positivity, forgiveness and gratitude; and deduct one of jealousy, impatience and hopelessness and wait… as the things eventually fall in place when the time is right and your upper case “H” Happy will seem close to your door!
Guest Post by: Charlotte Notaras