How To Be Happy With The Life You Have Right Now

By

Life is hard. Even for the most optimistic, happiest individuals, obstacles are inevitable. Especially in the harder times, it’s so easy to look around and see everything that you think could make your life better. It’s an extraordinarily common thing to decide that your problems would be irrelevant if you just had a better job/relationship/family/etc.

But maybe it’s wishful thinking. When everything feels wrong, it’s just so easy to come up with things you think are missing from your life.

It’s so easy to romanticize the possibilities and miss out on the beauty of reality.

But are those magical solutions you pulled out of thin air real at all? In these dark moments, it can be so easy to forget all the most wonderful things about the people and places in your life. There’s probably a reason you stayed in your current job or relationship; maybe you’re finally feeling the push you need to get out of a bad situation, but more likely, you’re blinded by the challenges of life. The low points in life are rarely the right time to make important, life-changing decisions.

In a rush to move on and feel better, you could be forgetting that you actually loved where you were and who you were surrounded by.

You could be forgetting that before you hit a bump in the road, you never wanted anything to change. You could be burning bridges, and you could regret it.

What I’ve realized is that the only road to true happiness is in utter appreciation of what’s in front of you. The world isn’t a black and white place; things aren’t either perfect or tragic. Life is messy, and that’s exactly what makes it so beautiful.

Every victory is a victory, no matter how small. Every step counts. Every moment spent with the people who matter to you is worth it, and demanding a never-ending series of those moments will probably only lead to a complete loss of them. All those long, hard hours at work that you just want to find a way out of will pay off when you achieve some of the most difficult goals you’ve ever set.

So next time you feel like one major change will make your whole life better, take a second to think about whether it’s really what you want. You might find that the people and things already present in your life are pretty amazing, just the way they are. I know I did.