Friday, January 28, 2011

Don't Worry...Be Happy

Yesterday I went to work and we were suprisingly slow. Me being a doof I completely didn't think to bring my homework or even my Chelsea Handler book that I'm reading for fun. Instead I didn't bring anything but myself so I had lots of time to blow. I did everything I needed to do work wise, but lets just say I had an over abundance of down time. So I Facebooked like a crazy person and read a whole lot of things on the Internet. I don't always love down days like that because I'm one of those people who constantly needs to be on the go, but it was really nice yesterday because my energy levels have been super low this last week. This was sign number one.

After lunch with my friend I walked home from campus and felt some pain at my incision site. Well that sucks I thought so I went to look at it and... (this part may be gross so if you are faint of heart go ahead and skip to the next paragraph) it looked like the Texas chainsaw masacre occured on my floor. I was so pissed off. I cried and not because it hurt super bad, but because I am beyond frusterated. I really thought this time was it. So after I cleaned myself up and my floor I called the doctors office.

They scheduled me an appointment a week from today, but the on call doctor told me that if it continued to bleed heavily that I needed to go to the ER. Well hell this brought up a whole new list of problems so I called my insurance company to see if this was going to cost me an arm and a leg. You know there is a problem with the healthcare system if someone bleeding profusely considers not going to the doctor because of money, but hey I have enough debt because of college and all the previous surgeries so I do everything I can to not add to that.

So at the end of the night I decided to not go to the ER, but I was so upset. I had a lot of things I needed to do, but instead I layed around and cried and felt sorry for myself. Yes even today I still feel justified in being upset and disapointed, but really there was a better way of handeling this mishap. So after feeling sorry for myself I decided that I needed to concentrate on being happy because mental health is essential to physical health. This reminded me of what I saw on Oprah the other day while flipping through the channels. I stopped because I saw that Goldie Hawn and Jenny McCarthy were going to be a part of the show, but a lot of things were very important.

The entire show focused on happiness. It talked about the happiest place to live, the happiest careers, the fact that more money doesn't make us happy and all other kind of things. I'll share some of the facts with you from the show.

1. According to a 2010 Gallup Poll, 57 percent of Americans say they are happy, 40 percent say they are struggling or trying to be happy and 3 percent say they are suffering.

2. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley found that people can be born happy—up to 50 percent of your happiness is genetic. (40 percent can be learned and 10 percent is influenced by life circumstances.) 

3. A Harvard University study has shown that spending just 10 minutes each day sitting and breathing—doing absolutely nothing—will increase your happiness.

4. According to a study by Dartmouth College, the more sex you have, the happier you'll be. (This must be were Meredith Grey from my favorite TV drama learned to be such a little slutty slut...lol. Notice in early season's she always has three things: tequilla, her Dartmouth sweatshirt and a one night stand).

5. Research from Dan Buettner's book, Blue Zones, shows that while having a child is stressful, a parent's happiness rises after the child turns 18 years old…and it keeps rising!

6. A Pew Research Center study found that almost 1 in 3 Americans don't know their neighbors. Yet, according to a study by Harvard University, the more neighbors you know, the happier and safer you feel. Plus, if your neighbor is happy, it increases your happiness by 34 percent.

7. Research shows that the happiest people watch the least amount of TV, while the least happy people watch 10 hours or more each day, according to a study by the University of Maryland.

8. Research shows that the more TVs you have in your home, the more TV you tend to watch. For ultimate happiness, watch between half an hour to one hour of TV per day. 

9. According to a Gallup Poll, Americans, on average, say they have nine close friends. Experts at the National Institute of Health say you should have at least two close friends for maximum happiness.

10. Travel agents, clergy, special education teachers and firefighters have the happiest jobs in America. And, on average, not one of those jobs pays more than $50,000 per year, according to research by the University of Chicago.

11. Studies show that money can make you happier, but only to a point: According to Princeton University, happiness maxes out once you earn $75,000 per year for a family of four.

12. Research from the University of Colorado at Boulder and Cornell University shows that spending money on a life experience produces longer-lasting happiness than spending money on material things; in fact, the impact of a new material thing only lasts about nine months.

To go with number 12 I think I should tell you that this is not the first time I heard that, but this last summer was. One of my friends said that he was going to start spending money on experiences instead of things because it just made more sense to him. I thought that was one of the most insightful things I had ever heard at that time. Seems like he knew what he was talking about!

I'll keep you all updated on what happens with my post post post op appointment and you all continue to read and be positive. I'll try to do the same thing. Do you have any happy suggestions or things you do that pull you out of a bad day? I'd love to hear your suggestions because I may need them. Don't worry about the little things and try to be happy because happy people are the prettiest people :)

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