Happiness in 2012?

2011 is on it's way out, brining in all of these resolutions - promises to do something, fix something, be better at something, learn something new. I have been sitting, through all of these holiday parties, dinners, brunches, and gift exchanges, racking my brain about what I can possibly do in 2012 that will make my life significantly better, and in some small way, have an effect on the rest of the world. The only thing that I can come up with, that I know, without a doubt I can follow through on: I resolve to be happy. With everything that goes on in our day to day lives, we so easily forget the simplest of things - to just be happy. There's always going to be someone out there who has more money than I do, is skinnier than I am, is funnier than I am, is smarter than I am. There's nothing that I can do about it, and I'm finished beating myself up over it. So, for 2012, I resolve to simply be happy. There's so much out "there" to be afraid of. There's so much that we have to face on a daily basis. I live in Houston. Here in Houston, you will find at every single stop sign, stop light, traffic cone, and crosswalk, someone asking for money, asking for food. Someone came up to me last night asking for gas money. To drive around every day and to see those that go without...all I can do is feel blessed for what I have, and be happy with what I have.

There's always someone out there trying to cut you down, thinking that cutting you down makes them a bigger person. We all face the "haters" on a daily basis. Some of us deal with them face to face. Some of us deal with them on social networks like twitter and facebook. Some of us deal with them through mutual acquaintances. Some of us don't deal with them at all. I sit from time to time and wrack my brain about what I did to this person, or that person to make them feel the way that they do. I'm ashamed to say that sometimes, I beat myself up about it. The only answer that I can come up with is, I'm happy, and they hate it. Why they hate it, I can't ever pretend to fully understand. It can only lead me to believe that perhaps for 2012, they should work on their happiness as well.

We face so much discord in our own country. We face racism every single day, but we have an African American president doing it much better than some of our Caucasian presidents past have. How can we have someone leading our country, that we VOTED to put there, and to put our trust and faith in, but when we cross paths with someone of a race different than our own, our walls go up; the stereotypes come out; and we become closed off and small minded. Look how far our country has come. As individuals, we need to come just as far. We are in a day and age where friendship, relationships, they all should be color blind. We should all be so lucky to love someone who loves us back, that the color of skin, country of origin, none of that should matter. What should matter is that we have found the one desire of every single person - to love and to be loved. That's all that matters. As children, we are taught that love makes the world go around. We should hold onto that as adults.

I challenge you to resolve to be happy. Be happy in your own situations. Be happy with your own decisions. Be happy with your life. You only have one of them. Time is something that we can never get back. Life is too short to put time and energy into negativity. Stop trying to change others happiness. Be happy with what you have. Be happy with who you are. Know that you are worth a year of happy.