Happy Valentine's Day

"To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering one must not love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer. To suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then is to suffer. But suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be unhappy one must love, or love to suffer, or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you're getting this down." - Woody Allen, Love and Death

While I'm not a big Woody Allen fan, I do find that quote rather amusing. In essence, as we all know, love is a tough concept to pinpoint, to define. Each of us has had our own experiences with love and it's hard to say what it means to any one person. Therefore my wish today is that we all celebrate the people or activities in our life that bring us joy and make this day-to-day journey worth living.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Thoughtful Yummy-ness

As I sit here eating my slice of chocolate tuxedo cheesecake, I am relishing every bite of the sumptuous dessert masterpiece and thinking about things that make me happy. Some of these things include: spending time with good friends and family, reading books that I can get lost in, drinking hot cocoa on a cold winter's day, listening to a classic car growl as it is driven up to a show or better yet getting a ride in one of those classic beauties, making people laugh, running outside all bundled up in layers until spring, hearing a favorite song on the radio, falling asleep on a summer's night with the windows open and a gentle breeze coming into my room, dancing in the rain with or without my favorite umbrella, getting a genuine compliment, having a cute guy smile at me, or listening to the giggles of my one of my friend's twins. And the list goes on and on. But, truly I am grateful for the life I have. And I think sometimes we lose sight of what we possess versus dwelling on what we don't have.

Have you stopped to give thought lately as to what makes you happy in your life? You might be surprised how delicious your world really is...

*Photo from Cheesecake Factory

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

We all do it, at one time or another – we worry. This worry can be over something real or imagined; in front of us or something we create in our minds.

Worry means, according to Webster’s New World Dictionary, to harass or treat roughly with or as with continual biting or tearing with the teeth; to pluck at, push on, touch, etc. repeatedly in a nervous or determined way; to annoy, bother, harass, vex, etc.; to cause to feel troubled or uneasy; make anxious; distress.

I think that last definition: to cause to feel troubled or uneasy; make anxious; distress, really describes my feelings, as of late. I seem to be unable to calm my mind – I am constantly on edge. I know it’s a plethora of troubles – personal and professional – and I know the best thing to do is not worry, but I can’t help it, it’s part of my nature.

I know that worrying doesn’t help anything. Often times it leads us to believe things that aren’t true. For me, my mind is good at coming up with all sorts of false scenarios that I believe must be true. I work myself up into a frenzy and convince myself that this idea, this concept I have created, is real. Then I focus all my energy onto it and hold on tight. It looms over me, lurks around every corner, every crevice of my mind. I get myself all tense and it’s awful. I just can’t relax or “get a grip.” I tend to pace the floor and often times I cry. What’s worse is I tend to talk my friends ears off over and over about the problems I am worrying about and then worry about that as well – that I will alienate them.

But, I am trying to think of ways to ease my stress. I am learning that exercising, being around people who make me smile and laugh, and trying to control the parts of my world, my life, my thinking that I can, I will. And remember, that this too, shall pass.

Anyone else out there worrying about anything? If so, I’d love to hear your remedies for easing that burden.