Happiness Happens—Sometimes We Just Have to Notice It
August is Happiness Happens Month—and I have to admit, that may be one of my favorite “national months” I’ve discovered. 😊
It began with a group called the Secret Society of Happy People, which created a day devoted to celebrating happiness and expanded it into a month-long celebration in 2000.
I love the simplicity of the idea:
Notice the happy.
Not manufacture it. Not pretend everything is perfect. Not wait until every problem is solved or life finally goes according to plan.
Just notice happiness when it happens.
We’re Always Waiting for Something
I think we humans are awfully good at attaching happiness to the next thing.
I’ll be happy when...
When I get the promotion. When I make more money. When I lose the weight. When we buy the house. When the kids are settled. When work calms down. When we finally take that vacation. When I reach that goal.
There is always another when.
And I understand it. I’m a goal setter. I love dreaming, growing, working toward something and raising my sights. But there’s a danger in always looking toward what’s next:
We can become so focused on the life we’re trying to create that we miss the life happening right in front of us.
You Can Want More and Still Love Now
This is something I’ve come to believe more and more:
You can want more and still love now.
You can want the next house and appreciate the one you’re in. You can want to earn more and be grateful for what you have. You can work toward the next level of your career and still enjoy where you are today.
You can have big dreams for your family while loving the wonderfully imperfect season you’re living right now.
Ambition and gratitude aren’t opposites. Neither are growth and contentment.
Being grateful for where you are doesn’t mean you stop moving forward. And wanting something more doesn’t mean what you have today isn’t enough to be happy about.
Maybe we can do both:
Dream about tomorrow—and enjoy today.
Happiness Doesn’t Require a Perfect Life
I also don’t think happiness means pretending everything is wonderful. Sometimes life is hard.
There are seasons of disappointment, worry, loss, uncertainty and change. There are things we would never choose and circumstances we simply cannot fix.
And yet, I’ve noticed something interesting about happiness:
It has a funny way of sneaking in anyway.
You can be going through something difficult and still laugh until your stomach hurts. You can be worried about tomorrow and enjoy dinner with someone you love tonight. You can have a problem you haven’t solved and still stop to appreciate a beautiful sunset.
You can have tears in your eyes one minute and find yourself smiling the next.
Happiness and hard things can exist in the same life. Sometimes even on the same day.
Maybe Happiness Is Smaller Than We Think
We tend to picture happiness in big moments—the dream vacation, the new home, the wedding, the promotion, the graduation, the big accomplishment.
And those things are wonderful.
But I think an enormous amount of happiness happens in moments that would never make the highlight reel.
Someone makes you laugh. Your favorite song comes on in the car. You get an unexpected phone call from someone you love. Dinner tastes particularly good. The weather is gorgeous. Someone gives you a hug. A project you’ve worked hard on finally comes together.
Or you walk through your front door after a long day and think, It feels good to be home.
Nothing earth-shattering happened.
And yet...
There it is. Happiness happened.
Home Has a Lot to Do With It
Maybe that’s another reason this idea resonates with me.
I spend my days helping people work toward something they want in the future—a home, a move, an investment, a financial goal. And I love helping people get there.
But buying the house isn’t where happiness magically begins.
The happiness usually comes afterward in hundreds of little moments: the pizza eaten on the floor before the furniture arrives, the first holiday, the backyard barbecue, the height marks on the wall, the neighbors who become friends, the quiet Saturday morning when there’s nowhere you have to be, and the ordinary night when everyone happens to be home.
A house gives those moments a place to happen.
But we’re the ones who have to notice them.
Don’t Wait for Someday
Last week I wrote about building a life we love. Maybe there’s another part of that conversation:
Enjoy the journey. Enjoy the life you’re living.
There will always be another goal, another project, another problem to solve, another milestone and another someday.
Keep going after them. I certainly intend to. 😊
But don’t make happiness the prize you’re only allowed to collect once you get there.
Final Thought
As August—and Happiness Happens Month—comes to a close, maybe we don’t need a complicated happiness challenge or another list of things to accomplish.
Maybe we simply pay more attention to the beautiful evening. The phone call from someone we love. The work that went right. The dinner around the table. The song we turned up too loud in the car. The ordinary moment that, for just a second, felt really, really good.
That’s happiness happening.
Don’t miss it because you’re waiting for something bigger.
Keep dreaming. Keep growing. Keep building.
But remember:
You can want more and still love now.
And whatever you’re working toward...
Don’t postpone happy. 💛
— SE
