{"id":9857,"date":"2015-01-30T15:50:11","date_gmt":"2015-01-30T20:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?p=9857"},"modified":"2015-01-30T15:50:11","modified_gmt":"2015-01-30T20:50:11","slug":"choosing-happy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2015\/01\/choosing-happy.html","title":{"rendered":"choosing happy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"happy<\/a>
via wikicommons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Someone in my family — probably either Aunt Bonnie or Grandmother Britton — used to say that you choose to be happy. Each morning, she told me, you make that choice. It’s a decision.<\/p>\n

So today? I’m choosing a happy face. There’s research I read somewhere (today’s that kind of indeterminate day) that say you CAN fake it ’til you make it. A smile really does<\/em> make you more likely to smile. Here goes.<\/p>\n

To help with this task (and no, things really aren’t any better — I’m just following my old ladies’ advice),\u00a0I’ve been watching cat shorts (& dogs). The one w\/ the cat refusing to walk on a leash is hysterical (find it on youtube — there are licensing issues w\/ linking to it). So are the cats taking over dog beds. And cats refusing to let dogs pass. But the one that made my day was one from somewhere with a written language I don’t recognise — I’m guessing Middle Europe. In it, a Siamese cat plays wildly w\/ its BFF — a large pigeon. If a cat & a pigeon can figure out games together, the world is a good place. And who would be unhappy in a good place? \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Someone in my family — probably either Aunt Bonnie or Grandmother Britton — used to say that you choose to be happy. Each morning, she told me, you make that choice. It’s a decision. So today? I’m choosing a happy face. 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Each morning, she told me, you make\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2015\/01\/choosing-happy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"choosing happy - Beginner's Heart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Someone in my family -- probably either Aunt Bonnie or Grandmother Britton -- used to say that you choose to be happy. 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