Responsibility and Happiness

A long timer asked me last night if I would lead this coming Monday on a topic from the new Blueprint for Progress. I said yes right off the bat. Partly because I can talk about how I did mine, but also because I haven't led in a long time and I could really use it. How did I do my fourth step you ask? I created a document in Word for each section and typed in every single question, then answered them. When I considered each section complete, I printed it. Thats me for you.

When I got home last night from the meeting I sat right down and started going through my printed sheets looking for what I should lead on. And one question jumped right out at me. I'm too lazy right now to run upstairs and get the actual question, but it pertains to the idea that we are responsible for our own happiness. I find this concept EXTREMELY difficult to grasp. I know there are certain things in my life that I can do that I enjoy and that bring happiness into my life, but in the grand scheme of things, I feel like I have very little control over my happiness. I can see ways that I can abate my anger, but not increase my happiness.

I found a reading in "Hope for Today" that I'll use in my lead. It's somewhere in the month of Dec, and all I remember right now is that the thought for the day is "What can I change so I can be happy? Is this realistic?" This question doesn't ask "What can I change so I WILL be happy?", but what I CAN change. What can I change? I've heard a lot of people talk about attitudes. And someone in the meeting last night said that for her, alcoholism was a disease of attitudes. And really, that is what this is all about for me. My attitudes are fucked up. Somewhere I learned the thought pattern that life sucks. So my dad at least had it partially right, I do have a pissy attitude, but it isn't in the way that he's always berated me for.

Wrap all of this up in a nice pretty package and we begin to see that I DO see myself as a victim. Not necessarily that anyone has done anything specific to me, but that "life" is out to get me. The feeling that life just sucks and why should I try feeling any different?

I'm not sure what my answers are to this quandary, but as something else I read last night said, I do have answers, just not for the questions I have.