Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

Being Happy

"If you want to be happy, be." It sounds so simple, doesn't it? Being happy, I mean. But at times it can seem so elusive, like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands. There are just those days when nothing goes right and everything knocks you down, and those are the days when happiness seems to be the farthest away.

One of the things that I've found that has helped me on those kind of days is a simple exercise. I try to see the world around me through the eyes of a photographer. Photography is a hobby of mine, and when I take pictures I try to see the beauty in the world around me.

I look for the balance, or imbalance, of light and shadow. I scour my environment for vibrant colors, things that stand up and shout out at me from their drab background. And when I look, and I mean really search for the little things, I always find something.

It can be as ordinary as clouds striking magnificent poses in the sky. Or maybe the way a single red tulip stands in protest in a deluge of its yellow brothers.

What ever it is, I find it harder to hate my little world as much when I realize the simple beauty that exists in it.

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