At the turn of the new year, my good friend Liz gave me a book called "The Happiness Project"- a memoir about a woman in New York City who made resolutions every month for a year in attempts to live an intentionally more "happy" life. Although personally, as a theologian and philosopher, a lot of her ruminations on happiness seemed a little shallow to me, the project itself is admirable and inspired me to try something like that in my own life: the 28th year of my life, year 2014. I read the book in January, and so set out to start the project in February.
February this year was one of the coldest in the past few centuries, and at school professors and politicians spoke ardently on the palpable and tragic effects that Global Warming is having on our planet. On a small-scale, my own life tends to become affected by the sleet and cold of February every year, but even more so this year in Chicago (or 'Chi-beria'), when many "snowpocalypse"s happened and people locked themselves inside for weeks on end. I felt like I was trudging- there were many days were it took a concerted effort to drag myself to school and slap on a positive face for colleagues and my students. So, it was fitting that my happiness resolution for February was: "Show Up." Woody Allen once quipped, "90% of success is showing up," and for this month of February, this addage proved true for me.
In January, I had joined a spanish speaking group from meetup.com, and actually ended up really liking it, despite the fear that I got before walking into a room of 30 complete strangers and then proceeding to speak in a foreign language for a few hours. I also love to go to yoga at the studio in my old neighborhood (which is now about 30 mins away), but in the negative degree fahrenheit temperatures of January I would often say "not today." So, for February, whenever an opportunity would present itself to me that I would usually REALLY want to say no to (already in my yoga pants, netflix could be my boyfriend), I made myself SHOW UP. This was especially hard to do for things that weren't mandatory. Besides going to school for the classes I was a Teacher's Assistant for, my PhD lifestyle is pretty flexible according to my wants and needs (believe me, not as glamourous as it sounds sometimes!)
My results for February? I was 100% happy that I decided to "show up," and if it wasn't for that phrase to motivate me through February, I would have had a lot of nights when I might have been tempted to "duck out." I don't want to live my life like that, and honestly it makes me even more prone to the winter blues, which can take a toll on anyone living in the north at this time, but most especially people who already try to balance anxiety and depression in daily life.
Some other goals that I have going throughout the year involve body care and relationship care. I am taking a plethora of vitamins to try to be more healthy, and am training for a half marathon in May. I try to be gentle with myself when I have waves of anxiety, and make sure that I treasure being able to sleep naturally now compared to last summer/fall when I would have to take sleeping pills to make my mind shut off. I'm really excited for March and to build upon my happiness resolutions each month. Perhaps I haven't found any "keys" to happiness, but I'm trying, and that makes me feel better already
:-)
