Happiness and the Art of Sanity Maintenance

I've been thinking a lot about happiness and what actually makes me happy of late, due in part to reading The Happiness Project

(on a related note, I just got an email that Daily Lit is offering 30 Days of Happiness quotes put together by Gretchen Rubin, the author of the happiness project. I just signed up, check it out: Daily Lit 30 Days of Happiness Quotes

The thought that we all do things that we think are necessary that make us less happy than we could be is a sobering one, and it's been worth some thought to determine what is really IS that makes me happy at all of late. I also know that this unhappiness is the reason that I've stayed away from blogging, that I haven't gotten as much accomplished in crafty ventures as I'd originally planned to, that I've pushed away from a lot of people and things that I used to enjoy, and did when I still lived in Toronto.

So I guess now that I can admit that in writing, I can start to figure out how to actually be happy, rather than just conceptualizing it as something that will happen one day, once I get that dream job, or get more organized, or do any number of things that we all equate unconsciously with that dream of 'being happy.'

I picture myself making some more lists and thinking about this topic further over the next few weeks, but overall:

Main Things that aren't making me happy:
1) my current job
2) the shambles that my apartment is in (though much of this due to my S.O. moving in in the last few weeks)
3) The amount of time I do crafty things (i.e. not enough)
4) my attitude and ways of dealing with problems and the effect it has on my close relationships
5) The amount of attention I put towards myself (i.e. sleep, doing activities that are fun, doing healthy things like yoga)

Yikes. The list is big and likely will grow bigger, but I think it's definitely time I stopped putting things off until later. Especially since I haven't yet figured out how to live forever!