What Is Happiness To You?

By Fawn Weaver on Thursday, August 2, 2012

I do regular check-ins with myself on my level of happiness, contentment, fulfilled purpose, etcetera.  I do this because as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found slight changes along the way in what I desire from life.  My goals shift, what is most appealing to me sometimes changes; life overall.  

I did one of these “pulse checks” as I was walking around the airport in Dubai and I’m happy to say my check-up went quite well.  My happiness is in good health.  What about yours?  

Happiness means different things for different people.  What makes me smile might make you frown and vice versa.  So what does happiness mean to me?  It’s quite simple.  A freedom to be myself, exactly as God created and my experiences have shaped me.  A freedom to love life to the fullest and to pursue every one of my hopes and dreams. 

The way my heart skips a beat when I hear my husband’s voice or the way I get so bubbly inside when he calls and his special ring tone, Easy Silence, by the Dixie Chicks plays and his picture displays on my phone.  Happiness is watching Pretty Woman or Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and being able to recite most of the lines while Keith laughs at me laughing at my two favorite movies. 

Happiness is walking along the beach and saying “thank you” for the birds, the trees, the ocean, the sand, the children making sand castles and the people running by as I continue on a nice stroll.  Happiness is being grateful for everything around me and all that is in me.

Happiness, for me, is not connected to money.  It never has been.  Maybe because I lived in several shelters as a homeless teenager or maybe because I’ve known so many wealthy people who are utterly miserable.  I learned long ago money could not buy happiness nor can the stuff it buys bring happiness.

Happiness is loving God, loving my husband, loving my family, loving my friends, loving myself and feeling wholly and completely loved in return by each of them.  Happiness to me, at this moment, is traveling around the world -in search of the secret to a happy marriage- and being able to write about this great adventure.  It’s having the opportunity to sit down and break bread with couples wiser than me, who have lived a life they’re proud of and who are loved and adored by their spouses.

Happiness to me is being able to describe what makes me happy and know I’m living that exact life, at this very moment, looking forward to what is still to come.

Question: What does happiness mean to you?  What does it look like?  What does it feel like?

If you’re happily married and haven’t taken the time to join the Club, make sure to join us today.  It takes only seconds and, of course, it’s completely free.  Until tomorrow…make it a great day!

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Fawn Weaver is the USA Today® and New York Times® bestselling author of Happy Wives Club: One Woman's Worldwide Search for the Secrets of a Great Marriage, adopting the same name as the Club she founded in 2010. The Happy Wives Club community has grown to include more than 900,000 women in over 110 countries around the world. When she’s not blogging or working on her next project, she's happily doting over her husband of nearly eleven years, Keith.

 

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