{"id":2476,"date":"2011-12-15T10:22:50","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T15:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspirationreport\/?p=2476"},"modified":"2011-12-15T11:06:54","modified_gmt":"2011-12-15T16:06:54","slug":"its-okay-to-be-happy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2011\/12\/its-okay-to-be-happy.html","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s Okay to Be Happy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For being an Inspiration Editor and generally content person, I\u2019m always surprised at how pessimistic I can be.<\/p>\n<p>As mentioned earlier, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspirationreport\/2011\/11\/healing-after-heartache-decide-to-let-go-and-move-on.html\">November was a rough month<\/a> for me. However, in a miraculous way that I can only describe as an early Christmas gift from God, December has been pure delight. Many things that fell apart actually cleared the way for <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspirationreport\/2011\/12\/the-11th-hour-miracle-its-not-over-yet.html\">something better<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspirationreport\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/89\/2011\/12\/smiles-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Happy\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-2477\" \/><\/a>So of course, I\u2019m waiting for the other shoe to drop.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t you hate it when that happens? Life looks wonderful, so you feel yourself worrying about what\u2019s coming around the corner. It\u2019s enough to steal your present joy away.<\/p>\n<p>You can spoil your own good time with a pessimistic attitude. Looking at life as though every joy isn\u2019t authentic (or worst yet, that it will be immediately followed by pain) is self-defeating. Before long, you\u2019re looking for trouble in paradise and whatever beauty that\u2019s in front of you gets lost.<\/p>\n<p>If no one else ever tells you this, let me be the first.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>It\u2019s okay to be happy.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Go ahead. Smile. Enjoy this moment. You\u2019re having a good day. Your boss gave you kudos. You met someone special. Whatever the reason is\u2026 it\u2019s okay to revel in the mystery of goodness.<\/p>\n<p>Life is a series of happy and sad times. Ride the waves and experience them all to the fullest. And remember that, some times, some things are so good that they just might be true.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Inspiration\/Articles\/Big-Fat-Lies-Women-Tell-Themselves.aspx\"><em>Also, read: Big Fat Lies Women Tell Themselves<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For being an Inspiration Editor and generally content person, I\u2019m always surprised at how pessimistic I can be. As mentioned earlier, November was a rough month for me. However, in a miraculous way that I can only describe as an early Christmas gift from God, December has been pure delight. Many things that fell apart&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4,20,6,26],"tags":[194,193,535,94],"class_list":["post-2476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-happier-you","category-inspiring-messages","category-something-to-think-about","category-thought-to-ponder","category-well-being","tag-happiness","tag-happy","tag-optimism","tag-thought-life"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>It&#039;s Okay to Be Happy<\/title>\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\/inspirationreport\/2011\/12\/its-okay-to-be-happy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"It&#039;s Okay to Be Happy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For being an Inspiration Editor and generally content person, I\u2019m always surprised at how pessimistic I can be. As mentioned earlier, November was a rough month for me. However, in a miraculous way that I can only describe as an early Christmas gift from God, December has been pure delight. Many things that fell apart&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2011\/12\/its-okay-to-be-happy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Inspiration Report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-12-15T15:22:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-12-15T16:06:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspirationreport\/files\/2011\/12\/smiles-300x225.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jennifer E. Jones\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"It's Okay to Be Happy","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2011\/12\/its-okay-to-be-happy.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"It's Okay to Be Happy","og_description":"For being an Inspiration Editor and generally content person, I\u2019m always surprised at how pessimistic I can be. As mentioned earlier, November was a rough month for me. However, in a miraculous way that I can only describe as an early Christmas gift from God, December has been pure delight. Many things that fell apart&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/2011\/12\/its-okay-to-be-happy.html","og_site_name":"Inspiration Report","article_published_time":"2011-12-15T15:22:50+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-12-15T16:06:54+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/inspirationreport\/files\/2011\/12\/smiles-300x225.jpg"}],"author":"Jennifer E. 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Jones","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/538\/5388855270a03493105edfa3ec01cb16x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/538\/5388855270a03493105edfa3ec01cb16x96.jpg","caption":"Jennifer E. Jones"},"description":"Jennifer E. Jones is a writer, editor and Web producer. She has written for entertainment, trade and inspirational organizations for nearly 15 years. She has a Master of Education and a Master of Journalism degree from Regent University. However, her greatest skill is crushing anyone in a game of \"Name That Tune.\" In her spare time, she is an amateur home chef, a rock star marathon runner and wannabe novelist.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/author\/jjones"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2476"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2481,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2476\/revisions\/2481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspirationreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}