"if we really look for those things we want in our life, that’s exactly what we will find." Lee J. Colan & David Cottrell So it's 1238 (well it was when I decided to start writing this anyway) I've gotta be honest - I'm not used to having nothing to right now. I'm sure its 4 years of history just niggling on the inside - telling me it's time to get ready for the best part of the night. I'm perfectly comfortable where I am right now. I'm lying in bed - reading, listening to a beautiful certain someone discuss matters of nothing even remotely comprehensible with mysterious invisible dream people, and thinking - about a lot of stuff. Which is probably why I'm not asleep just yet - so I've gotta put it down somewhere. Here looks good. One idea that I've been toying with for the last few days/weeks/months is happiness. I've always considered myself to be a pretty happy person - and I think that's why I am. I know for a fact I come across almost absent minded and childish at times - but I'd much rather stay that way then start getting heart failure over dirty dishes. My point is - my attention is on getting the most out of my moments. I don't usually stop and ask everyone what they think is most appropriate for me to do at this point - and I sure as hell don't care for being told what to do. What i've come to learn is something similar to the age old adage (happiness is a journey not a destination) Happiness is focus. Happiness is knowing what matters to you - and chasing it. relentlessly - like a dog chasing a torch light around a room (kinda). Over the last few months, I keep running into unhappy people - and not the 'I'm in a glass cage of emotion' type. Just people, normal people, that once you get a little closer to, have little cracks - or bumps - in who they are, and although it doesn't look like much on the surface, they're always the type that you walk away from wondering "what they were actually thinking about". One that really stuck on me was a friend who, for no lack of their own intelligence or self-confidence, was preoccupied with avoiding something potentially negative from happening in the future - not just one thing. LOTS of things. Almost as though they had contracted some sort of butterfly effect virus. Unfortunately for her, bad stuff kept happening. Which seemed to provide proof for her behaviour. The hard thing about happiness is - its different for everyone, and so there is ABSOFUCKINGLUTELYNOTHING out there that can prove it So I've been doing a bit of reading tonight... trying to put the matter to bed for myself more than for any other reason I want to start something - a branch on the HSM tree - a happiness manifesto. I said I was going to find some cool shit every week to share - and that's still true. But I also want to find out what makes you happy because I think they fit. Also I don't think people pay enough attention to it - which is strange because I don't know anyone that's ever told me they don't enjoy being happy. I want to do this for one reason - I don't have time in my life for people who don't believe - it's my opinion that most unhappy people got that way because they stopped believing in something. There are only two things that really get under my skin - arrogance, and whingers. People that are too pre-occupied with blaming something they have no control over, or trying to enforce their own control over something they should never have - usually fit both those moulds I believe in change, I believe in universal happiness, and I believe that everyone can achieve it. So I'm going to go and try to find it. watch me. Happiness is the first step and the last one, it can be the reason for the change and the goal, the motivation and the stepping stone.

“Only one thing has to change for us to know happiness in our lives: where we focus our attention."

Greg Anderson