Happiness

Today someone asked me about what makes me happy and what my favorite things in the world are.  And, to be honest, it took me about 5 minutes of thinking before I even wrote down the first thing.  My list isn’t in any particular order, and it’s just what I thought of in this moment.  I’ll be the first to admit, my list has some silly things on it and it doesn’t include everything. 

1.     Harry Potter everything

2.     All cheese-related food

3.     Sleeping and cuddling and hugging

4.     Roller coasters

5.     The beach

6.     Chocolate

7.     Playing Spoons, the card game

8.     Traveling

9.     Laughing

10. My Grandparents, Bill and Carolyn Ross

If you look at my list, I’m sure it looks weird.  But, if you know me, you know that I do actually love EVERYTHING about Harry Potter.  Movies, books, songs, A Very Potter Musical, A Very Potter Sequel, A Very Potter Senior Year, and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  This one I think is self-explanatory.  The second one is about food, which naturally I love.  I seem to eat all the time, and I don’t gain any weight.  In the US I ate cheese pizza, cheese Quesada, cheese sticks, cheesecake, and string cheese.  Sometimes I would just eat plain cheese, I know it sounds gross.  And in Brazil, we have bread of cheese.  And it’s so delicious; I eat some almost every day.   I’m not sure why I grouped everything in the third section together.  Cuddling and hugging I can see being related, but sleeping really has nothing to do with those.  I left it together, because when I wrote my list earlier today that was how I wrote it.  Roller coasters.  Who doesn’t love them?  They have everything that I think is awesome.  There is suspense, fast paced action, and a sensation of flying.  They can be absolutely terrifying, but it’s totally safe.  The feeling of free falling is my favorite, and when you are on a roller coaster its hard to thing about what comes afterwards because you are so focused on the action and the jerking of the roller coaster.  I think the beach is pretty obvious.  I went to the beach a lot as a kid, and for the past few years my family has gone to the beach for vacation loads.  The only part that I don’t like is how sand gets everywhere and it seems impossible to get rid of.  I also think chocolate is obvious.  Its not very healthy, but it tastes so good.  The card game of Spoons is something that I haven’t played in a really really long time.  I can’t play it with just anybody.  If you have asked me to play with you, I probably gave an answer about how I play the Intense Spoons, not just regular Spoons.  There is a huge difference.  But every game I have played of this game has been so much fun and always results in laughing.  And speaking of laughing, that’s also another thing that brings me joy.  I love to laugh.  I’ve learned to laugh at myself, and that’s really important.  Laughing is a reminder to not take things so seriously all the time; in the end everyone is the same.  So, you might as well enjoy your time on earth.  Who wants to live a boring life without laughter?  Certainly not me.  Traveling.  Duh, of course you like traveling Emma, you are in Brazil for a year.  Duh.  I mean traveling to new parts of cities, to new places, to new ideas, and to new people.  Through traveling we discover things about ourselves that otherwise we couldn’t have.  If you knew me while I was in the US, you already know how much my Grandparents meant to me.  I spent time with them and loved it.  My Grandpa introduced me to my favorite summer camps, ARE and CCC.  My grandma has shown me how to cook and has always been there for me.  No one can imagine how much I cried when I heard the news that my grandpa died.  That was one of the hardest nights for me.  I stayed up all night and watched Up.  Which was incredibly sad, but it reminded me that he would have wanted me to love life and have fun.  Nothing can really follow the happiness that my grandparents bring me. 

The point of this is to think about what makes you happy.  It doesn’t have to be fancy things like your car or something that you think people want to hear like your job.  Different things make different people happy.  And you shouldn’t sacrifice your happiness for someone else’s.  Your happiness is something that only you can decide.  If there is anything that I have learned so far this year, it’s that only I can decide how this year is going to turn out.  It can suck or it can be awesome.  It depends solely on me.  And being happy is really important.  I know this blog doesn’t really have much to do about my adventures in Brazil.  I’m going traveling with my family soon to Patos for a few weeks before school starts.  And Carnival this year starts on my Birthday, so I’m really excited about that. 

I really like this song.  I know that its not the best, but I think it goes along with the theme of this weeks blog.  Happiness is important, and not everything is as it seems.  And you can't know true joy without having terrible things happen to you.  You need to be able to fully appreciate good things, and you can't do that without the bad.