ON HAPPINESS

I am remarkably tired today. I was on call last night, woke up early this morning to send out the duty log, couldn't fall back asleep. Normally, this would put me into a funk that I couldn't shake. However, that is not the case.

I find myself much more patient than normal today, even though work is picking up (thanks to mismanagement of others in the department, my co-workers and I received a sternly-worded email or two about our efforts...interesting). This does not concern me like it normally would.

I am running late; this blog post should have been made much earlier. This would normally cause a tightening of most of my "stress muscles," which are apparently located in my chest. This is not happening.

I have tried to figure out WHY this is happening, WHY I am not reacting like I normally would. I can think of a few things that are different from a "normal" day like this. Firstly, last night I finished eating the chocolate chip cookies my mom made for me before I came back to the area. It's a well-known fact that moms' chocolate chip cookies everywhere have healing powers...perhaps they have preventative powers as well. Secondly, I recently reconnected with an old friend, and that has energized me in ways I can't precisely define. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I chose to be happy this morning. I chose to not let work defeat me, and I have stuck with that choice all day. It's not an easy choice to make when one is accustomed to taking the much-more-simple snarky attitude, but it's a worthy choice, and one I need to make much more often.