Happiness is at no cost but is right now, and in the moment....

I don't really care that much whether people listen to me. I used to think, once upon a time as a young lady, that I'd do something grand and impressive, change the world and all that stuff. I don't care about that anymore. Now, the more I've learned, the more I've come to lean toward the conclusion that the best thing in the world is for the world to leave you alone.
There is ultimately nothing to accomplish in life. You don't need to be rich or well-liked or of prestigious social standing. You don't need much of anything to be happy. You just need to focus on being happy, because you can only do one thing at a time in life.
If you try to do more than that, nothing gets done because your intentions conflict with each other, one hand pushes against the other. You must choose. Career or family, money or love, success or happiness… you cannot have it all. You can really only have one thing in life, and you'd better choose carefully.
You can choose money, spend all your days in gradually expanding offices and finally die of a heart attack in a board meeting while your gold-plated Ferrari sits quietly in the garage of your fifty-room mansion in the most exclusive neighborhood in the state.
You can choose family, be buried in a 2-for-1 bargain plot with your spouse & children weeping over your headstone and be as forgotten as a dead squirrel in the forest in a matter of generations. I hate to think of this especially having two children of my own, but hey let's be realistic.
You can choose anything you want in life and probably get it, but you can only completely achieve one thing. If you split your priorities, you will achieve split results as well. You can have a little bit of money, a little bit of prestige, a little bit of family and a little bit of everything else, but none of them will be complete for you. If you want 100% success with anything, that thing must comprise 100% of your priorities. Each goal you set for yourself takes away from all your other goals, because circumstances will always force you to further one at the expense of another and to choose between them every day.
My advice to you is to focus on happiness, on enjoying life. You probably don't want to hear this, but this means you will not have status, be oober rich, or anything else. Conversely, focusing on money, status or anything else means you will not achieve happiness. Happiness is not success. Happiness is the opposite of conventional success.
It's not having things, it's ceasing to want things. When you stop caring about everything that could be and focus completely on enjoying what is, you are happy.
You are unhappy when you think your life isn't the way it should be, that you need to change X and Y and then your life can really begin. It doesn't work like that, though. This is your life,  RIGHT NOW, THIS IS IT! Are you happy? That's the truth right there.
Because people mostly do not want happiness. They want something else, something like money or success or status or respect, a beautiful wife or a wikipedia entry that says they were important. They want other people to think they are happy more than they really want to be happy. When you want to be happy even if it means that everyone you've ever loved and everyone you're ever going to meet will think you're a pathetic loser, that's when you're ready to be happy. Not before.
Being happy is the simplest thing in the world. Just do something that completely occupies your attention.
This is why people do extreme sports – the danger requires their complete attention so there is room for nothing else in their brain, and their internal monologue about everything that they think is wrong in their life quiets down. You don't need to risk death, though. Watch a really good TV show or play a video game, something that really draws you in. Once you get better at giving your complete attention to the immediate present moment, you can do anything. Cook dinner, go for a walk in the park, sit still and do nothing. As long as you can stay out of your head and out of the range of that internal voice that nags about changes it wants made, you'll stay happy.  I had a day like that yesterday & only I allowed it to ruin my happiness....silly silly silly me for allowing it. Happiness is your natural default state. Do you think lions lying in the sun berate themselves over what an ex-girlfriend or sibling said about them on Facebook?
That's the secret to happiness right there. It doesn't seem that impressive since I didn't stretch it out to 180 pages with exciting Sanskrit words and made-up spiritual-sounding terms thrown in and charge 29 bucks for it. But it is the truth.
I've said what I wanted to say on this blog and I could probably have said it a lot quicker. What does the future hold for me? I might just go and do something completely normal and boring or pointless that involves hanging out in the grave yard wondering if the day of the dead will ever be and play Zombies with my son(s) because it's funny & I know it will evolve into more happiness because it is silly & fun.
No one can know the future, and don't ever let anyone convince you they can. Those people on TV and on the internet trying to tell you what "will happen" in the next ten or twenty years are full of shit. All of them. Especially the experts.
Don't budge into the pressure of doing what does not make you happy, know thy self and what makes you soar and don't take it personal if other's don't get you, just be who you are and in the moment of happiness.

Laugh a little or better yet a lot.....

Wow, it's been a while since I've written, last year to be exact.  I do plan to try and keep it a up a bit more this year even though I'm off to a late start.  So for now, let me write about my favorite thing; that thing being laughing. I mean seriously, I am the cheapest date for a chuckle & a giggle.
There's no pleasure as wonderfully simple as a good laugh. A fancy meal requires extra time on the treadmill. An exotic trip abroad will drain your wallet.  And while there's nothing quite as cathartic as a good cry, where's the fun in that?
Spontaneous funny moments happen all the time, yet the art of manufacturing comedy is a tricky business.  Drama is like a good keylime pie: It's not easy to make it great, but the ingredients are pretty simple. Loss.  Betrayal.  Bad luck.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to make you feel rotten.
Comedy, on the other hand, can come at you from any direction.  It's unpredictable and infectious.  It requires timing & execution, plus a real understanding of how to please a diverse audience.  Our individual senses of humor are defined by our struggles and our values, and no two people walk the same road.  So how do you create a joke with universal appeal that also gives everyone the feeling it was just for them.  The good news is that there are a lot of comedians taking the challenge.  And increasingly, those comedians are us.
One way we're wresting humor from sitcom writing rooms, comedy clubs, bringing it on the streets with flash mobs, blogs (my personal most recent favorite blog my dearest friend Amber introduced me to is Crappypictures, a must go to read). These communal experiences have grown so popular that they've come full circle.  We've also taken comedy online, ofcourse.  Many who earn a living to make people laugh have mended a funny bone that was broken. Sites like Funnyordie.com & YouTube.com have democratized comedy by giving everyone a shot at it.  Feel free to skip the multiplex offering and make it your mission to get into some real-live entertainment, whether it's an innovative comedy project or a classic festival.  Heck, why not go one step further with a little laughing yoga (yes it is real-google it) or circus training?
The magic of good comedy is that it doesn't allow you to sit around passively-it demands full participation.  After all, you're either laughing or you're not.  And when you do, it feels really really good.  So what are you waiting for and laugh some bliss into your life.