Happiness is Made of... pt 2: A POSITIVE MINDSET

Why is having "a positive mindset" always the answer? You may have heard this answer over and over. I have. It's like how in every Youtube video on "healthy tips" "drinking water" is on the list. Every, single, time. A positive mindset is on every "how to be happy" list. And for the same reason as water on health lists: it's fundamentally, unavoidably true. If you've heard this a million times and you're sick of it, me too. Writing this was both fun and redundant because I repeated some things that I've heard and told all too often, but I also voiced some new points. So if you're feeling like you don't need to read this because you've heard it all before, please consider sticking around because maybe there's just one bit you could use, like the last sentence.

Your mindset is how you do and will experience the world at every moment in your life. This is truth. It's like you're the camera, capturing stills of your breakfast, best friend, and year. And your mindset is the filter set on every photo. Note that everything about this planet --including you-- is ever-changing. Seasons of wilts and blooms.

When you were two years old, you may have been blissful in the front yard, running through the sprinklers with your cute little tummy, or maybe grumpy because you needed a nap-a-roo. When you were fifteen, you may have been a hopeless romantic, reading love stories and eating popsicles on the front porch all summer, hoping some cutie pie would walk by and fall in love with you. Or maybe you woke up each day consumed with devastation that you didn't make the team. Where are you now? Are you grateful for the quirks of your home: the creaky stairs, the view of the sunrise, the weird neighbors? Do they make you smile and shake your head with a chuckle, or are you bothered that the stairs are too noisy, that you see the sunrise from your patio instead of the sunset, and that your neighbors are weird? The truth is that nothing can make you do anything. Those things don't make you smile or make you frown. You make you. You decide. That's the miracle of being a human being, welcome to Earth.

Human beings have agency. We are born with this gift and responsibility to choose. That means it's within our power to create the physical life around us: our whole world! You are capable of having your dream life with dream home, dream love, and dream socks, when you realize that and begin making it happen. Honey, you can bring anything imaginable to life. And note: there's not a dome that sections off your life from those around you. This is a shared planet. You have the ability to create and so does everyone else. You have the ability to harm and so does everyone else. Our lives are intertwined. We all affect each other more than we know, and sometimes absolutely wild things happen to us that some people call bad things. But the fact of the matter is that there are no bad or good things. Everything comes down to mindset.

Listen darling, we're going to run a little test. As I ask you these questions, take a deep breath in -- literally, do it -- and read these questions in your mind. You'll know which answer is true.

Is a Monday morning to you a fresh start or a dreaded end to the weekend?

Is work dreadful; monotonous, stressful, or an opportunity to gain a skill and make a living?

Say you woke up late because you forgot to set your alarm, then didn't have the time to get dressed up like you'd planned or curl your hair to feel extra beauty baby, then realized that your car was dead because you left your lights on last night after you got home from a night out with friends. If this were today, how would you respond? Would you be livid and yell at your mother, brother, boy, or friend because you carried negative emotions with you? Would you let it ruin your day? Would you decide to forget that it happened and carry on with happy thoughts? Would you feel the frustration and emotion, let it pass through you, and then pick yourself up and carry on?

Do you live in light or darkness?

Those questions reflect the mindset that you have. If you're out and about in this world believing that summer is too hot, winter is too cold, and the world is an awful place to be, you'll find your feelings and life reflected in that manner. You will feel awful and attract awful things. So don't! Decide to appreciate summer for the sake of lemonade and tans. Decide to appreciate winter for sweaters and mistletoe. Maybe you've heard this a cajilion times, maybe it's sunk in, and maybe you really haven't done anything about it. Now is the time. If you let today be a stinky winky because you won't take ownership of your own happiness, you've lost a day of joy and goodness to your old crusty life. Stop living like a heathen and realize that you're in control. This life is yours for the taking and you've got to grasp that everything is up to you.

Baby honey, train your mind to see your surroundings in good light and your life will evolve into a blessed and beautiful existence. You will feel good when you think good. One way that I've done this process for myself is by recognizing my thoughts the moment that they appear and labeling them as "positive mindset" or "negative mindset". Today I was walking Moo and thinking about work and money, something I've been shifting my mindset about for quite some time. It can be hard work! Anyway, I often catch myself thinking about how I can't wait to be self-employed and have the freedom to be my own boss. I get wildly stressed about how much money I make vs how much I seem to enjoy spending. And the freedoms that I want to have in the future: time. Very often, I feel like this ;/ about going to work. As I was on my walk, it hit me like a ton of bricks that I am so grateful to have this job, doing something so fun as baking. I'm lucky to have a way of earning money, to be able to support myself and have the simple pleasure of eating Chick Fil A nuggets and fries on occasion. This is a lesson that I've been waiting to be hit in the head with for a while now.

And in the last five hours or so, it's made me quite happy to think about my work as a blessing. I'm grateful for the opportunity before me now. While it'll be entirely lovely to be a full time blogger and entrepreneur, it's fun to be a baker too. I love the feeling of having a totally wack sleep schedule for good reason. I love waking up in the middle of the night to cut dough, get covered in flour, make raspberry fritters, and have more arm muscles than ever in my life. These little armies were weak, trust me.

Do this with everything. Take your thoughts and mindsets and turn them into gold like a crazy little rumplestiltskin. It'll make you happier and your people will love that too. Mindset is everything. It's a major factor in whether you stay the same, grow, or fall. So take the time to think about it.

Be happy now. Be thankful, honey. Pause your thoughts for ONE SECOND and ask yourself what you have right now that someone else is on their knees praying for. Stop wishing for another life because you are living someone's dream life. Someone wishes that they had a bed to sleep on. It's at the top of their list, and maybe you have a cushy, California king. Someone wishes that their eyes were blue, and you've got blue eyes! Let me let you in on a little secret. Come closer, clooooseeer. Okay.

I love you and you can do this. Bye!