Choosing Happiness!

“Some people chase happiness and some people choose happiness.” Robert Holden

Happiness can be an elusive thing.  I was recently painting with my daughter and found what I had been seeking for some time. I felt free for  a moment! Having the ability to put color and shape together completely unobstructed influenced how I painted that day. It shook something loose in me and I had an “Aha,” moment that I have not had in quite awhile. What was it in that moment that freed me up?

Chasing our dreams or choosing happiness is what can be so elusive. Just when you think you are closing in and have your life sketched out a certain way it changes again. That’s what I believe to make both the mystery in  art and life. In life we can feel trapped at times with our circumstances.  That is where living from a truly happy place can begin if we can carve out the precious moments for ourselves every day and art can create that  experience.

Chasing,  the water on paper, following the color, but not too closely. Allowing the strokes spontaneity.  Offering a little bit  of ourselves out with color and optimism so that we can learn more about who we are within. Our life not feeling like a paint by number but rather a life with the desire to continue the “search,” for ourselves and our happiness.

Happiness is always there for us in the moment we just need to shift our awareness so that we can choose to see it. Contentment in the present is where we can quietly observe what we are feeling on the inside.

Happiness for me on this day is sharing hot cocoa on a lazy  afternoon with my daughter , enjoying our art, and smiling and having fun along the way.