by Stacy Menzies
President, Happy Fix (www.happyfix.com)
In
life, as in business, it’s always important to reflect on where you’ve
been, where you are and where you’re going. Sometimes it's just a
natural progression, sometimes events force consideration. This summer
has been challenging. Both of my kids are away, one at college, the
other at a summer program. We’ve also had several close friends
experience devastating losses and challenges that nobody should have to
encounter. Last weekend, our sweet dog who was 14, was euthanized. It
was the right decision but no less sad and painful for our family.
As
I processed these events, I asked myself, “How can you find a silver
lining in negative events? How do you Happy Fix things that are by
their very nature, unhappy?” Not easy questions and really, a
challenge to what we embrace at Happy Fix. This idea that you should
choose happiness can be hard sometimes. It can go against all of your
instincts. The notion that you could ” Celebrate the Great” in the face
of things that are really hard is counterintuitive.
Yesterday, I came across an interview with Jessica Ekstrom. Jessica runs a company called Headbands of Hope.
Jessica interned with a wish granting organization during college.
She was struck by the fact that kids who are being treated for cancer
and have lost their hair, love to wear headbands. She took money set
aside for a study abroad trip to Spain and started Headbands of Hope.
For every headband purchased, the company donates one headband to a
child with cancer AND $1.00 to Pediatric Cancer Research.
People
like Jessica show us that the answer to this conundrum about what to do
when bad things happen lies in the free will that all of us possess.
We are given the power to choose how we want to react. We can choose
fear or courage. We can choose to stand still or to move forward. We
can choose to complain about our situation or to change it. We can
choose focus on what’s bad or celebrate what’s great.
I
don’t minimize the sadness and the trouble that exists in everyday
life. I think, however, if you make a commitment to always be on the
lookout for what’s great, you can sometimes snatch something good from
the bad. Does that mean you will never experience another sad thing in
your life? Absolutely not. We are living feeling creatures. In order
to appreciate happiness, you must sometimes experience other emotions
and sometimes these emotions suck. The difference lies in whether or
not you swallow that sadness and make it part of who you are or you
experience it and then move forward.
Over
the past couple of months, I have seen people choose to celebrate
what’s great even when it makes no sense to do so. They take action.
They make choices. They are strong and I admire them. They are the
people who have convinced me that we are on the right track. The only
way to make a difference is to make a choice and take action. Has there
been a time in your life when you were able to take something bad and
find something good in it? If so, please be one of our Happbassadors
and share it. We need all of the inspiration we can get. Let that be
your Happy Fix today.
P.S. To help our friends find Happy Fixes wherever they are we are in the process of compiling the one, the only HPY Directory.
Send us a few links to places or things you would like to see included
in the HPY Directory and we will send you a discount code for HPY merchandise on our site. Tell the world you are an official Happbassador!
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