Make YOUR OWN Paradise

My husband turned to me and said, “Everyone here is so nice and so relaxed and so happy”. I thought about it for a minute and replied, “Well if you can’t be happy here, where can YOU be happy?”

The HERE in “Well if you can’t be happy here…” was one of the most beautiful tropical islands in the world. My thought was how could a person be unhappy when they are in the middle of paradise? I would think you would have to be really miserable or a major jerk to become upset in a place like this.

For some reason this thought stayed with me and as I walked around, a few different perspectives flitted through my mind. The first is that, I suppose some people might get so caught up in the ‘I am in paradise and on vacation, everything should go perfectly’ mindset and that they might allow any issue or imperfection to really spoil their mood. Another mindset could be that of the person who is always discontented or is hesitant to admit something is good because they are afraid it will be taken away from them. This person either does not realize they are in paradise or will never admit that they are in paradise.

But for most of us, remaining happy and relaxed when we perceive ourselves to be in an ideal situation is pretty easy. Our environment is a strong influencer of our mood, but our mood is still determined by our mindset. I was relaxed and happy because I assumed that on this fabulous vacation I was going to be relaxed and happy. I was where I wanted to be. I had already made up my mind that I was going to be happy.

Why can’t we have this mindset ALL of the time? Why wait for vacation to find it easy to be happy and relaxed. It really is all about how we choose to look at things. And if we keep finding ourselves in situations where we think, ‘This is no paradise, this is hell on earth.’ Then WHY put ourselves in these situations. We must either change our mindset or change our situations or both.

So this year, I invite you to join me as we each make our own paradise.