“You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore before you decide to be happy”
I recently saw a video on the America’s Got Talent Facebook page that really spoke to me. A young woman who goes by Nightbirde sang a beautiful song she wrote called “It’s Ok” and in her interview after she performed she said those words.
” You can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore before you decide to be happy.”
Right before she sang she mentioned that she had been fighting cancer and still had cancer in her body at the time of her audition. Then later after the performance she revealed that she had less than 2% chance of survival. Less than 2%! I thought to myself ‘this girl has the best outlook on life‘ one that I wish I had realized so much sooner in my life.
For so many years I struggled, feeling like my life was always going to be hard. I allowed the hard times and stresses of being a single mother dictate my happiness. It took me quite a few years to really understand that my outlook on my life was contributing to my unhappiness.
I was creating a self-fulfilling prophecy for myself. Telling myself that life sucked or was too hard MADE it suck and too hard. I was not looking at any of the good things that I had in my life. Only focusing on the bad. I didn’t realize at the time that was keeping me in a constant state of unhappiness.
I finally realized that I had the ability to CHOOSE happiness. That I could focus on the good things in my life instead of all the negative. Dwelling on the hard times or bad things that had happened in my past kept me stuck in the past. Not looking forward. As single moms that can happen to the best of us.
We all have different stories and circumstances that have led to us being single mothers. And YES being a single mom can definitely be hard at times but we don’t have to let those hard times make us hard. It can be very easy to allow the pain, hurts and anger from our past keep us in an unhappy state.
Choosing happiness means you choose to keep good and positive people in your life as opposed to emotional vampires or toxic people. After all, how can you be happy if everyone else around you is miserable OR if they are sucking away your happiness?
Do you find yourself always getting involved with people who do not treat you well? Are you sticking with friends who are always bringing drama into your life? Those types of people will bring the wrong kind of energy into your life.
The energy we project is what we tend to attract. So if you want to have a happier life with happier more positive people in it then you will have to choose happiness.
Too often we also dwell on the things that didn’t go well in our lives. Instead of realizing that maybe those things needed to happen for us to get where we need to be in life. Whether you believe it divine intervention from God or the Universe sometimes those bad things were the best things that could have happened to us.
I know that getting fired from my job 13 years ago seemed like the worst thing that could have happened to me at the time. BUT it led to me starting my own business and THAT has been the best thing that ever happened for me. It allowed me the freedom to be at home with my kids, become financially stable and live a better life.
If you find yourself still thinking about or dwelling on a break up from years ago or an argument that you had with your ex last week…you are keeping yourself in an unhappy state. Choosing to be happy means that you make a distinct choice to not allow negativity to rule your life.
This and other changes helped me finally break out of that funk of unhappiness that I had found myself stuck in for so long. When bad things do happen, yes it does effect me but nothing like it used to. I am no longer as short tempered, no longer allowing small things to get to me and overall am so much happier as well as less stressed!
Things may not always go the way I plan or want BUT …
I won’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore before I will be happy.
