The last two days I've been participating in a social experiment entitled "100 Happy Days". Over the last month I've seen Instagram posts and tweets with that hashtag and figuring it to be the latest social media trend, I decided to avoid it but Sunday evening, I saw a post which gave me a better understanding of '100 happy days' and for a myriad of reasons, I decided to participate.
This month and last month, there has been a certain theme to my conversations with friends, a feeling of life having not turned out the way they thought it would; marriage not being as blissful, kids not being as well behaved, being married and not being able to have children, to not being married at all or not as successful at work, or not making a certain amount of money within a certain time frame, and on and on. Everyone I talked to seemed to share this sentiment of not being happy exactly where they are, with exactly what they have at this moment. It led me to wonder if this is a consequence of choices or a consequence of settling. The more I've considered it, the more I believe it is about choices, so Sunday when I saw the 100 happy days post describing the experiment as a choice, it struck a nerve.
For me the experiment does not stand as a test to be happy all day, every day for 100 consecutive days but instead as a choice to find at least ONE piece of joy in each day, every day for 100 days. It is often I see and hear and even experience it myself, where something goes wrong and it robs the joy from the day, one little thing makes it difficult to find our way back to happy. How ironic that happiness can be so fleeting while anger and misery so lasting. But we can all make a different choice. I am choosing a happiness that lasts. I am choosing to find at least one piece of joy in every day for the next 98 days. Won't you join me?
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