Don't worry, be happy

Stole a few hours last week to catch up with my gal-pal ML. She's been a staunch supporter about all this baby business so it was great to chat over martinis and stay connected. She mentioned, correctly, that I've seemed really happy for quite a while. While I'm generally a happy person, I've felt an airy lightness for months.

Strange, because work has been a complete pain in the butt. This adoption stuff is slow, stressful, infuriating, and worrisome. My to-do list is out of control. My house is a mess. And yet, I've got a firm grasp on my happy place!

I attribute some of my inner glow to finally making a decision about our family. For years we didn't deal with an essential question regarding our future, and that indecision weighed us down.

The "should we or shouldn't we" decision was difficult for us because were trapped by our need to have all the answers and make numerous decisions at once. Our discussions went like this--

Do we want kids?
If we had kids then we'd want to live closer to family.
So to have kids, then we need to relocate back to the northwest first. 
Which means we both need to get new jobs.
But we really like our jobs and our house and our friends and don't really want to move.
And we really love our lives and if we had a family that would make things really different. 
And if we are ambivalent about having kids then maybe it's not the right time for us to have them?
So do we want them or not? 

You get the idea. Our need to have all the answers got in the way of our happiness.

Gretchen Rubin at the Happiness Project had pitfalls to her happiness too. In order to avoid those pitfalls, she created 12 personal commandments. For example, her rule of "let it go" addresses her defensiveness towards making mistakes and how holding on to her frustration over errors causes stress and anxiety.

Taking a page from Gretchen, I wondered what commandments would we make to help us have more happiness?

A must rule would be to "make one decision at a time." We are bogged down by analysis paralysis (thanks to C for giving this a name!). We try to make too many decisions at once and that keeps us from making the ONE decision that we need/want to.

Want more happiness in your life? I suggest checking out Rubin's blog. You might also look at Randy Taran of Project Happiness's list of 10 Easy Ways to Be Happy Now: Exercising the Happiness Muscle.

So what are some of your commandments??