I've Been Found Guilty and Given a Life Sentence

Why does life have to feel like a life sentence without the possibility of parole?

Should happiness be something that is only catered to the super rich?
If not, if money, as they say, isn't the key to happiness then what is?
And most importantly, how can we achieve this so-called happiness?

Is it Universal? If doing this or having that makes me happy will it work for you?

Yes, we all crave happiness, right?

I have to wonder if happiness is even a basic want anymore. Or if it ever was. People seem almost content to be living at the corner of complaint and excuse. Constantly saying they want to be happy and yet doing nothing to ensure that they will be.

How often have we heard, or said so ourselves that doing something would make us happy?

• I'd be happier if I was healthier and able to do the things I want.
• I'd be happier if I could get that job promotion.
• I'd be happier if Sarah Jones would go out with me.

And yet, instead of exercising and eating right to gain good health we either choose to just continue complaining about the problem and how we can't fix it: "I can't do this, there's no point in even trying." or back up our laziness with an excuse: "I'd love to start working out, but I can't afford a gym membership."

Thus the cycle begins, wanting something and thinking it will make us happy and yet never doing anything to achieve that happiness. How many January firsts have passed by with you thinking you will make a change? Then how many December thirty-firsts have sneaked up on you without you accomplishing a single goal?

I know I've had many.

So why can't we, or better still, I stick with my plan for happiness? If changing my life will make me happier, and I know this because the life I currently have doesn't make me happy, when do I then choose to avoid that chance for happiness?

I don't understand why so many people fight against their own happiness. Are we really that lazy?

Maybe we are. Maybe I am.

Perhaps I've gotten so comfortable in this unhappiness that I can't do anything to get out. But I don't want to be comfortable in misery anymore.


I want to be happy, I think I might even deserve to be happy, and I've decided that I will be happy, or die trying.

Don't get me wrong though. I'm not suicidal, I don't think my life is some bottomless pit of agony. I'm simply at the point in my life where I want more from it, and I don't think that's wrong. I want to be able to look back at the end of a really bad day and still know that I am happy with who I am, and how I live my life.

According to dictionary.com.

Happiness results from the possession or attainment of what one considers good: the happiness of visiting one's family.

Before continuing on my path towards happiness it seems I will need to figure out what it is that makes me happy. I don't see this as an easy task, a lot of things would make me happy. A new car, the weekend off, spending time with my husband. These aren't all priorities and many and at best frivolous.

As I suspected the road to happiness is not an easy one and will take time to walk, but I'm willing to do it.

So I pose this to my readers. In your life are you truly happy? Can you look at your days and smile knowing that you are where you are meant to be with the people you are meant to be with?

If you're like me, not happy, but not completely unhappy either, perhaps you could join me in a journey to try and make over your life.

To find whatever it is that you know you are missing, and hopefully at the end of the journey you can say to yourself, "I may not be rich, I may not have all the answers or that big screen TV I wanted, but at the end of every day I am happy."