Happiness Boosters: The Epiphanies
It was nearly a year ago when, while flying home from the East Coast, I experienced a series of epiphanies. Thirty in total at 35,000 feet in the air. About halfway through the flight, I’d felt dreadful. Dreadfully air-sick, frustrated, impatient, perturbed, and disturbed. I was an emotional Mount Vesuvius, ready to blow. I sat huddled in a corner of the plane, shade pulled down, eyes squeezed shut, fighting nausea, with an onslaught of unhappy thoughts that made me miserable. My saving grace was that no one knew about my distressed state, but me.
The last leg of my trip had included a writer’s conference that left me uncertain. The query letter for my completed manuscript had been read aloud in front of three literary agents and an audience of writers. The first agent remarked it was “excellently written.” The other two stated it wasn’t the norm, so they’d likely discard it. I’d written the query as a blurb for the back of my hopefully soon to be published book. It was solid as far as I was concerned. Three agents, including the one who responded favorably to my letter, asked that I send my manuscript to them. Yet I left the conference feeling gosh darn unhappy.
That quiet discontentment unleashed the torrent of epiphanies during my plane ride. An epiphany is an illuminating discovery or realization. Mine consisted of a list of life changes that needed to be made to help me better guard my happiness.
I won’t name all the epiphanies, as some are too personal, but here are a sampling:
1. No clutter.
2. No fretting.
3. No time spent on news media that could cause fretting.
4. No wearing feel-bad clothes (donations to my local thrift store keep me happy and hopefully make others happy too).
5. Feed my mind with positive notions/views/content.
6. No likes/dislikes (I’m often in the company of people who carry a personal agenda, which I’ve noticed prevents an open mind and hinders an even state of happiness).
7. Wear only comfortable shoes, but shoes that look good (a costly challenge at times, but a necessary luxury for me, as I walk a lot at work).
8. Change no one but yourself.
9. Criticize no one (criticizing keeps us from the full-time job of focusing on improving ourselves).
10. Be a success at what you love.
11. Read and write more.
12. No time killers/breeze shooters.
13. Plant more flowers.
14. Use wisdom daily.
15. Be uplifting to others.
16. Surround yourself with positive, uplifting people.
17. Enjoy dessert more.
18. Progress without compromise.
19. Keep up the momentum of anything that’s positive.
20. Become a published author.
Number twenty posed the greatest challenge since the “how” eluded me. Or so I thought. A day later, with my epiphanies still fresh, I received truly wonderful news from the lovely person who became my truly wonderful editor at The Wild Rose Press, which led to publication. Did I need to drive myself to a state of emotional upheaval to make what I needed happen? Nope, but it made me realize happiness boosters are often at our fingertips.