Find Time to Be Happy
January 4, 2021 2:38 pm
These are strange times. We are frustrated that we can’t spend our time as we’d like. COVID leaves us feeling like time is not on our side. Everyone is ready to make up for lost time when the pandemic is over. How can we find any time to be happy? This blog will offer a few suggestions to make the best of your “right now.”
I find time to be happy. I do it even though I can’t go to a restaurant or have coffee with a friend. I have a secret “happy weapon” that you can have, too. It’s creative expression. On a day when the hands of time tick too slowly, and the day seems to offer little joy, I pick up a paintbrush and I create. I am whisked away to someplace far away where people don’t wear masks, and the air I share with others is safe. Creativity lets me find a place in time where I am happy.
A liminal space is a place where you are stuck between “Yesterday” and “Tomorrow.” It can be a place of great angst because waiting for what tomorrow will bring often raises one’s anxiety. With the start of 2021, what tomorrow might bring is certainly unpredictable. What can you do to make yourself happy while you wait? I suggest finding your own personal “secret weapon.” What creative endeavor can you undertake? What form of artistic expression will allow you to feel some happiness during these unprecedented times?
My husband is woodworking more than ever. A close friend is painting and redecorating rooms in her house. My nephews are designing the interior for a new business. I know knitters, scrapbookers, photographers, and coloring book colorers who are finding unexpected joy right now. Rebecca paints on rocks with mandala dots. I saw a beautiful collage made from pages in magazines on Instagram, just yesterday. Jen has been making YouTube videos about her Sketch Box deliveries. These art makers have tapped into happiness during times when many others are very unhappy. They have found their “secret happy weapon” and they are using it to find peace and joy in the new year!
Choose your weapon! Do it! Don’t wait to find a way to fire away: snag a little joy. Then, don’t stop there. Pay it forward. Encourage someone else to find their “secret happy weapon,” too. Share, share, and share the power of your creative process. Do it here, or elsewhere. Let people know that “happy” can be found. Now, more than ever, we need creative process to take us all to our “happy place.”
Happy, 2021
