The Optimism Experiment

I read an interview with Drew Barrymore about ten years ago where she explained that she chooses to be a happy person, or something to that effect. I've always thought it would be nice to make the choice to be happy but I've never been sure how to effectuate that change. My natural inclination is to always focus on the negatives in situations (e.g. "I don't like the carpet in this hotel room" instead of "this room with a view of the beach in the Ritz Carlton is awesome"). Now, ten years down the road, I'm afraid I've already let too many of my adult years slip by while I've been in the throes of my pessimistic attitude. My baby is seven months old and I love her more than anything, but sometimes I worry that I'll only remember the hard things about her baby years (e.g. pumping multiple times a day because she never liked breastfeeding). Tonight, as my mind danced from topic to topic while I tried to decide how to spend my suddenly open evening (since the baby went to sleep relatively easily), I decided that now is the time more than ever to become happy. A change in attitude is in store for this unhappy lady and it will come in the form of frequent blog postings reminding me of the great things in my life, my day, my hour or my minute and here is my inaugural posting. Five things to be happy about on June 15, 2009 (and btw, pink is the color of optimism for those of you that didn't know):

• I have a job. I know this one seems like low hanging fruit, but I need to be thankful for and happy about gainful employment. Especially since I have a baby lady at home. My job keeps my mind sharp, looks good on paper and comes with great benefits. These are all features to cherish on a regular basis.
• I have a healthy baby lady. Once again low hanging fruit, but the baby lady lights up my day when she smiles or when she wiggles because she wants me to pick her up or when she laughs when i tickle the side of her belly and bunches of other cute sweet exchanges we have throughout the day.
  
• I started the optimism experiment. I don't know if I'm allowed to be happy about starting the optimism experiment before I know if it works, but I'm feeling pretty good right now and that must count for something.
• I have an awesome husband. My husband is a great guy to be married to and a super daddy. Good old hub puts up with a lot of my bad attitude and loves me anyway for some unexplained reason. I can't think of anyone better to have a baby with and I'm glad he's my man.
• My cats still love me. This one is out there, I thought I would save it for another day but it is hard to come up with five items (eek!). Even though we've been hard on them since the baby lady came along, the cats still love us unconditionally (well Charlie does at least). It makes me happy when I think about how much they love us just for petting them occasionally, feeding them and providing them shelter. They have such simple needs and I'm glad I'm able to take care of them.

OK. We'll see how this works! The optimism experiment may be leading to the anxiety result; I'm fearful that tomorrow I won't have five items to list since I used all the easy ones tonight! But, I'm optimistic (see, see, it is working) that by tomorrow I'll have five more good things to list.