April 6, 2014

feeling lucky....

Today I got to spend time visiting my mom and then went to Craig's mom's birthday. With all that is happening in our lives right now, I have never felt luckier to live so close to our families and be able to spend all of this quality time with them.  
When I was running today, I was thinking about how we're so often told that it's the pursuit of happiness that we're all striving for. We've seen the shelves lining the book stores with every self help guru trying to cash in on their shortcuts to becoming happy. But isn't happiness just an emotion, like sadness, anger, etc? Isn't it just a temporary feeling that settles in for a bit, depending on what is happening in our life? I think the greater pursuit, should be one where we're functioning at a level of deep satisfaction - soul fulfillment. It's one thing to go through the arbitrary checklist: career, home, car, spouse, children, investments, travel.....or whatever we're "supposed" to have achieved. But I know so many people who have all the right boxes checked off, who exist in a plane of tremendous dissatisfaction because they're clinging onto someone else's checklist. They haven't put enough of what speaks to them into their lives. My joys are simple: time spent with my family/friends, time spent in nature, time for my creative outlets (photography, writing, art, music, reading), exercise and exploring new places with my loves. I'm so entirely grateful for this because it means most of my days are spent injected with things that fulfill me and they don't have anything to do with my bank account balance. Here's a website I highly recommend for how to look at your life in a new, more meaningful way: Becoming Minimalist. xoxo

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