You may have wondered, "Why is this Andrea Garst person claiming to be an expert on Happiness?"  and let me tell you, I have been questioning this myself, lately!  This past year has been extremely challenging, and at times I shook my head in disbelief that I had written a book, telling people how to achieve Happiness.  I couldn't really even find it myself! As the fog clears, as it does, I realized that life would not evolve without adversity.  We would not grow if we were not ever challenged.  Think of a muscle:  if you never use it, it never develops.  The more you use it, the more resistance it encounters, the bigger and stronger it becomes!  Our mentality is a muscle, of sorts.  This is certainly not a new analogy, but it has taken on new meaning for me.

My son had a hard day at school last week and came home with a long face.  "Why does life have to be so HARD?"  he wailed.  I hugged him and reminded him that the hard days can make us even more grateful for the happier days.  He grumped back something at me, and I smiled to myself. One day, he will look back and wish he only had middle school problems.  As we get stronger, our issues become larger, and this is proof that we have experienced growth.  I take it for validation that not too many things get to me these days.  The things that bother me, are worth my time and growth.

We have deluded ourselves into thinking that Happiness, Peace, Love, or any other desirable emotion, is a constant state of being.  This is simply NOT THE CASE.  You don't achieve Happiness, and just stay stagnant, nor would you want to!  You keep challenging yourself to make the hard decisions, and create the change in you that will ultimately move you forward.  This is human nature, and to be stagnant is NOT the goal here.  So, as I go through a depressed day here, an angry day there, I realize that this is just my energetic body moving out the old, making way for the new, and, at the same time, creating resilience for the future.  This is very exciting, and even though I still make a lot of mistakes and have certainly not been even close to "perfect,"  I am most certainly, without a doubt, HUMAN to the core.

Enjoy your human existence!  I will keep trying:)