Always strive for your perfect

You can probably already tell I like the word “epiphany”. It has such a positive connotation in my mind; if you think about it, each new bit of information we acquire is technically an epiphany if we treat it as such. I carry around a notebook and pen with me at work so that I can document notes throughout the day as I’m constantly learning new things right now (and hopefully always). In the back of said notebook, I have a page titled “Educate Yoself Foo”. Here I jot down anything new I learn during the day. If I hear someone use a word I’m unfamiliar with I’ll make note to look up the definition and try to use it in a sentence to help me learn a new word. If my boss is teaching me something and uses a term with which I am unfamiliar, I’ll smile and nod at the time so as to appear knowledgeable but then write it down, research the meaning and try to repeat it somehow the next day so he and I are confident I knew what he was talking about. Win, win; the boss thinks I’m smart then I do the research to ensure I become smart on the topic! I’m writing about this because I find it helps me learn quickly and thoroughly and potentially help you get ahead, hopefully some will find this information useful.

How does this relate to my Happiness blog? In my experience, when I strive for perfection and put in the effort for a good day’s work, I leave work happy. I come home to my loved ones happy and happiness, thankfully, is contagious.

I asked a friend to read my first post before I published it on the blog. He came back with some good questions and insights which I thought should be addressed here. He mentions I define, in a roundabout way, my idea of happiness as the elimination of negative situations and the ability to maintain a positive outlook by looking for the inherent blessings in any given situation. Now, I hadn’t thought of it that objectively but, spot on. I like it! I still find myself getting frustrated at work with the same situation I had resolved in my previous post. So it’s not to say life will ever be perfect but yes, I have the ability to eliminate the negative attitude feeding the situation and believe that this will, in the long run, result in an even bigger blessing than it has already been. I’ll think of it as a character building opportunity; who do I want to portray myself as? Happy and hard-working, so that’s what I’ll be. Take responsibility for your actions.

My trials with battling cancer for the past 6 years have helped me on the whole positive outlook mentality. When you’re receiving chemotherapy via infusion you are in a room with several other chairs with several other people going through the same thing you are; no one wants to be there. You can imagine this is a setup to be the most sad, miserable place possible. Thankfully this was never actually the case. Most people were inspiringly positive and we all fed off each other’s positivity. There was the occasional Debbie-Downer and without fail, that person would be in more pain than the rest of us who opted to think positive. It’s awesome now, that thought process has allowed me to have a crazy high pain tolerance. You can literally will-power happiness over physical pain. Right now for example, I have one large blister on each hand from jet skiing and when I concentrated on the pain, it hurt but I have gotten very good at the ability to simply tune-out pain. See, cancer has some good side effects too! Being in pain becomes a norm for cancer patients as well so on the days when we don’t experience ANY pain, I know for me you couldn’t slap the smile off my face. Always remember, things could be worse!