A few months ago, a good friend gave me Option B written by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant.  I’m about halfway through it, and already have quite a few Post-Its tagging pages.

As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, there has been an awful lot going on in our family during the last couple of months.  The other night I read a few passages in Option B which really impacted me, and I wanted to share them with my readers.

“When we look for joy, we often focus on the big moments.  But happiness is the frequency of positive experiences, not the intensity.”

“Paying attention to moments of joy takes effort because we are wired to focus on the negatives more than the positives.  Bad events tend to have a stronger effect on us than good events. “

“Even when we’re in great distress, joy can still be found in moments we seize and moments we create.  All of these can provide relief from pain.  And when these moments add up, we find that they give us more than happiness; they also give us strength.”

And, I’d like to take it a few steps further and share with you three moments that made me happy this past week:

1. Driving in our car, my ten-year-old son sat in the back seat, singing along to “Sugar, Sugar” by The Archies, but doing it our family-way — substituting “Oh Ryan” for “Oh Sugar.”
2. My son and I watching Apollo 13 (again), and applauding when the three astronauts safely splashdown.
3. Sitting on our patio the other night after dinner as my son and husband ate bowls of chocolate ice cream, and I sat and watched — our giant pinwheel spinning, a hummingbird, and “my guys” on our glider.

It’s a good reminder that when things seem hard, or scary, or overwhelming, moments of happiness are all around us.  We just have to pay attention to them.

Readers, I’d love to hear from you.  I invite you to share your recent moments of happiness in the comments section below!