I discovered a hack for Living

I was a year older on Friday! Wow, what a year!! It’s been full of so many ups and downs. The same year I birthed this blog because there were so many experiences, thought processes, emotions and mindset shifts that I had gone through. I was thinking I would write about my reflections from the past year but I have decided to leave that for another day. Today, I will simply write about one major hack I discovered to help you enjoy your memorable moments even amidst challenges.

While looking forward to my birthday, I had repeatedly told myself that “Ody no matter what happens, you will be happy, you will focus on the positive and you will be grateful”. I repeated this to myself because of my experience from last year when I had tied my happiness to have achieved certain things, be with certain people, and acquire certain things. So even though last year I was surrounded by so much love, I still found it hard to accept it all because of the conditions I had subconsciously built as reasons why I should be happy.

So this year I came prepared; I was going to have the most memorable of all celebrations. Days to my birthday, when I thought I had everything under control, it felt like things were starting to go out of plan. But I was not going to be bothered because I had set the intention for the new year—I was going to be grateful and full of joy.

Fast forward to my birthday, everything seemed to want to test my new resolution- from relationships, friendships, career, work, my health but I had to be intentional in staying joyful and grateful. I discovered that happiness is not found in the things we have but in our attitude towards everything happening around us and in us. That, my friend, is the hack! On Friday, I chose to be grateful for life, stay joyful, to handle every challenge with as much grace as I could muster, see new perspectives to situations and quit longing for things I didn’t have but to be content in all I had. And so despite all happening, I was full of so much gratitude and had the most memorable birthday!

Thank you so much to everyone who was there. Thank you so much to everyone for your outpour of love. I love you all and I am grateful. My prayer is that you would find much more joy on your days of celebration.