My perfectly imperfect happy

When someone (like me) says "choose happy" what does that make you think? 

Does it make you think you can't be upset? Or that when you are it's going to go away if you just choose to think happy thoughts? Does it piss you off? Does the statement in and of itself in fact make you happy? I wish I could say that I came up with this whole concept by myself, but in fact it was (and is) my beautiful mother that shoved "choosing happy" down my throat. It's her saying. Growing up, she's always told us to "choose happy". Last year, that simple phrase of two words ticked me off to high heaven. When my mom or anyone else said it I would think "don't you think I'm trying? Do you think I want to be sad, bitter, upset and a little more sad?" It was my least favorite saying in the entire world. Things sucked and I thought (key word) choosing happy was impossible when everything was crap. 

Looking back on the year I realized choosing happy wouldn't have been so hard, if I wasn't focused purely on the bad. A lot of great things happened last year, my brother graduated high school, my dad got an amazing job, my cousin had a beautiful healthy baby, I was part of an amazing ministry. The list goes on and on.  

This year has only been 13 days. They haven't been perfect, things still suck. I still have heart failure and diabetes. I'm still living at home (sorry mom), I'm at a job I don't love, life is no where near perfect but today my happy moment is realizing that life will never be perfect, things are ALWAYS going to suck. But life is what you make it and if you dwell purely on the crap, then you are going to think that life is crap. But if you choose to see the good and focus more on that then anything, then the bad days, aren't going to seem so bad, or be so hard to get through. 

I like choosing happy, and I'm glad that what I thought was wrong.