find happiness at the supermarket

We all have good days and bad.

We think about the times when we were especially happy, perhaps a wedding day, or the birth of a child, or a special day out, birthday or holiday and sometimes its easy to think that life has a few special times and lots of boring days in between.

But what if every day could be a happy day? – what if we could find pleasure in all our day to day routines?

Ok you’re saying, but I have to go to the supermarket - how can that be happy?  Take a look around you at the supermarket, its clean and bright – there are wonderful foods from all over the world for you to choose from. You have money in your purse to buy enough to make a delicious meal for you to enjoy with your family. Perhaps even enough to buy a bar of chocolate to sit and enjoy with a cup of coffee when you get home and have put all the shopping away.

Ok, so I have to do the washing – how can that possibly be happy?– think how lucky you are to have a modern machine that does most of the work for you, water on tap and electricity to make it work,  how lovely and fresh your clean clothes will be and how satisfying it will feel to put the freshly laundered clothes away in the wardrobe.

Housework – free workout and think how you’ll enjoy the results of your home feeling clean and tidy

Gardening – fresh air, exercise and the wonder of nature all around you

Cooking – the chance to be creative and make yourself and others happy with a wonderful meal

Getting the idea? 

Slow down and find the happiness in the every day routines and you will find more joy in your life.

the time to be happy is now

I can remember as a child thinking that life would be perfect when I was 13 – that was the age when I could join the local youth club and that (according to my older brother) was where everything was great and wonderful – of course it never lived up to the expectation – in fact, I can now remember the longing for it more than the actual youth club itself.

How much of our lives do we spend looking forward to being happy? – when I leave school, when I get a good job, when I get married – that’s when I’ll be happy.

Of course its good to have goals, to have things to aim at and look forward to, but if we get into the habit of constantly striving for the next thing, are we enjoying the journey as much as we could?

If we go through life thinking that we need a better job, a smarter car or a bigger house to make us happy, or that we would be content if we could just get a bit fitter and lose a bit of weight, will we ever reach that happiness?

Make your mind up to be happy right now with what you are, and what you have – enjoy the journey and not just the destination.