Kicking off my first reflection today seems fitting since I have just made a major decision regarding my own happiness. I just left a successful career to pursue writing full-time. Friends commented it’s a brave, bold move. But mostly, it boils down to one thing:
Happiness is a choice.
And since writing books makes me happy, I have made the choice to fill my time with it—and not the sometimes fulfilling, fascinating, but soul-draining job of working in conflict zones overseas. I gave that profession my best, and while there were moments of happiness, the work didn’t sustain it.
As a writer of fiction, I marvel at how much a character’s journey can parallel real life. Many of us have those moments where we suddenly realize we need to make a choice. There needs to be a change. Either this sensation has been building inside us for years, or it comes to us in a major moment of inspiration, what we’ve all heard called that epiphany thing. When we’re honest enough to admit we aren’t happy, we’re opening the door to finding out what will make us so. And when we start exploring, oh, the places we’ll go, to paraphrase Dr. Seuss.
Then the decision comes. Are we going to choose to be happy?
I did, and even though I don’t know exactly where it’s going to go, I’ve made my choice. I’m going to live in my bliss. Like the early parts of a novel, there’s a sense of a new adventure awaiting the heroine.
And her goal is happiness.