As we go through life stressing about the "woulda, coulda, shoulda", gain a new perspective on how to find happiness and peace today.
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Welcome to the Be Your Best Self Blog. by Marsha Abbott.
"Stop Stealing Our Happiness!"
I can’t believe it…it’s time, once again, to end this year and to get ready to start anew. And in my head, all I can hear this week, over and over again, is Michael Bublé singing, “It’s a new dawn. It’s a new day. It’s a new life. And I’m feeling good.” And he is right, it does feel good. It feels good knowing that as each new year approaches, we get a chance to start fresh…to start over…to start anew. And it is exciting for me to think about what may lie ahead this year. Will it be the best year yet? Will life take me on some fun adventures? What will I learn? Who will I get the opportunity to meet? For me, it all feels so new and exhilarating! I truly can’t wait to see what 2022 has in store for me and for our family!
But as quickly as I get these words out, its as quickly as the doubt seems to set in. If I am being 100% honest, then I also need to admit that this week also scares the life out of me. I try to always focus on the positive and think of all of the great things that may come my way. But sometimes I get anxious, and I worry that maybe this year won’t be a good year. Maybe I will have to travel down a path that I really don’t want to take. Maybe I will end up learning, but it will instead be some of those difficult life lessons that I just want to avoid all together. And maybe the new people that cross my path won’t impact my life in a constructive way. Maybe it will be one of those years that I wish would pass just as quickly as it seems to begin. And it frightens me, more than I can even describe, that this just might be the case for 2022…because none of us can ever know for certain what lies ahead.
And this can sure be a terrifying way to live…of being scared of what life has in store for us. And I now know that I am not the only one who thinks this way.
Recently, I had a BYBS blog follower write in to me. This woman, my friend, she is dealing with so much right now. She unexpectedly lost her only sibling. Her parents are slowly aging and not in great health. She worries about what her future will look like without any family left in her life. And then to top it all off, someone very young but also very important to her just found out that they have a terminal illness and probably won’t even last through the new year. 2022 is going to be a difficult year for her…and sadly enough, she already knows it.
It’s a terrifying way to start the new year. And it’s even more frightening to try our hardest to live in the present when we have so much that we know eventually will weigh us down in the future. How do we deal with that? How do we cope? And how in the world do we start anew knowing that it’s going to be a hard year ahead? How do we figure out a way to still enjoy life and be our best selves when we are certain hard times will fall on us?
This is no easy task, and I know that my friend is not alone here. When we think of all of the hurt out in this world today. When we think of all of those dealing with terminal illnesses or sicknesses that they are trying to fight their way through. When we think of those people out there losing family members and trying to cope with their new reality. How do we still find a way to live in our present life? How do we find a way to still be happy…and to choose hope?
While I don’t have a secret solution hidden up my sleeve, and while I can’t take away all of the hurt that will happen to us in 2022, what I do have is one simple reminder. A reminder of how we can do our best to live in the present, to find happiness, and to still have hope during these difficult times. It is something so simple yet something we all tend to forget about when we are dealt hard life lessons.
It is so simple yet always seems to be forgotten….
It’s as easy as taking a step back and remembering one important thing…we can only control what we can control. So the real test is to stop focusing on those things that are out of our control. We can sit and worry or stress and lose sleep about the impending doom that lies our way, but it won’t make it any less our reality. And it won’t fix the problem. All it will do is steal our happiness today. All that will happen is that it will dim our hope that we have right now in this moment.
We all need to stop doing that. We need to Stop Stealing Our Happiness…our own happiness! Because that is really what is happening. We need to stop worrying about our future reality, and instead, we need to focus on only what we can control and let the rest happen the way that it was meant to.
Does this mean we will always like the outcome? Of course not! There are so many situations in life that we all want nothing more than to change the outcome. To reflect on what we could have done differently, to make the past undue itself, and to change the present life we now have to deal with or the impending future that we know is now going to come our way. But no matter how much we stress about the woulda, coulda, shoulda…it won’t change the outcome and again, all it really did was steal our happiness from us now.
So instead, we need to accept the outcome of what is to happen or what has already happened…whether we like it or not. We need to focus on only what we can control…whether we like it or not. And we need to eventually find peace with the outcome we have been given in our life…whether we like it or not.
Because, sure, maybe when we were younger, our original plan for our life looked differently than what we see today. Maybe our journey is taking us on a course that we didn’t expect…but our worrying and our anxiousness won’t change the course of fate. It will just steal our happiness right now, in this moment. And that is no way to live.
So to my fellow blog follower and anyone else out there dealing with hardship: As we start the new year, I want, more than anything, to change the outcome that seems to now exist as your reality. I want to take away all of the hurt and pain that I know you are experiencing right in this moment as you worry about what the future holds. And I have no doubt that you too would give anything to change all of the bad that is going to happen this next year. But we have to remember one tiny and simply thing…we can’t control fate, and we can’t control the future. The only thing…right now…in this moment…that we have control over is our own happiness.
And today, as you look around at your life, what do you see? Take some time instead to count your blessings that are all around you. Look around at the beautiful world you have been given. Focus on those positives and use them as a crutch to carry you through your journey during some of your darker days. Because we all have to remember that our own life goes by so fast. So focus on that happiness and find hope that the rest will work itself out the way it was meant to…even it if wasn’t part of the original plan.
So this week, as Michael Bublé’s famous words fill my head: “It’s a new dawn. It’s a new day. It’s a new life. And I’m feeling good,” I am going to choose to focus on the happiness that I know is yet to come in the new year. I am going to choose to find hope and believe in the amazing blessing coming my way in 2022. And when darker times do cross my path, I will figure out a way to use these blessings as a way to carry me through. I hope you will choose to focus on this too as we start the new year. And no matter what outcome is to come, I hope you will always remember that our worrying and anxiousness won’t change what is ultimately going to happen. So let’s be determined to not…under any circumstances…let these worries steal any more of our happiness. The happiness that we are so incredibly fortunate to have in our life today…right now…and in this moment.
*Happy New Year to my amazing blog followers!!! May 2022 be your best year yet! Thank you for being on this incredible journey with me as we navigate how to be our very best selves!
*For those of you struggling with something in life or have a topic of interest that you want me to talk about in this blog, email me at BeYourBestSelfBlog@gmail.com. Let’s work together to Be Our Best Selves!