What it is.

I found this one and it resonated with me.  I think I am guilty of being a person who has definite ideas of how things "should" be.  I know for a fact that when I live too much with the "would have's", "could have's" and "should have's" I am most certainly not happy.  I have decided that that lack of happiness is because I focus too much on how things should be, I am not living in the present, but more in the past or even the future. 
It has been hard for me to find my own "happy" place.  I have to focus constantly on living in the here and now, not next week or next month or even next year.  Raising so many children, it seems as if all the good was just around the corner.  When they are potty trained, when they are in school, when they graduate. 
Too often, I find myself not enjoying the spot right where I am.  I find myself waiting to see what else might happen.  I find myself not living right here.  I find myself in living the "What next" phase of life.  
I am learning that things are never the way I dreamed they would be.  People make their own choices, bad things happen to good people, promises are broken, and sometimes, it is as simple as illness that changes the way you always looked at the world around you.  
I am learning that we each look at life according to our own experiences, our own heartaches, trials, misadventures, and fears.  We look at life the way that we expect it to be based on our past.
As I read the above quote, I am reminded that I survived the past.   It is not longer here to disappoint me.  It is no longer part of my life to hurt me.  I can  hurt from it forever, or learn from it now.  The choice to be happy has always been mine.