I recently heard someone say that you cannot wait for life to not be hard to be happy. A more powerful statement would be hard to find.

Life will always be difficult. It will be at points hard and complicated. It will be stressful and disappointing. There will always be something coming along to make things harder. Living is hard.

Many people think that if they wait until things get better or easier they can be happy. If they wait until life is less complicated and stressful happiness will follow. What happens if life is always hard?

If everyday we are waiting for our lives to be easier before we decide to be happy eventually we run out of time. There is not an unlimited amount of days for one to wait for things to be “perfect.”

It would be much easier to be happy right now if our first thoughts were of things that make us happy, ways to be happy, choosing joy intentionally. If that were what we think about first, we could block the way for thoughts of how difficult things are going to be that day or even replace them.

Will it keep things from being difficult later in the day? Probably not because this is how life is. But if you start out happy don’t you think that when the difficult comes later you might be more able to have resilience to handle it and power through it without retreating back to negativity?

What have you put off because life is just too hard? Jobs, education, relationships, self-care? What have you decided you would wait to do because things are just not “perfect?” Have children, retire, buy a home?

What would you choose to do or be happy about if you could let go of waiting for your life to get better?

Then choose it now. No one is promised the next day or the next breath. No one lives forever and life will always have struggles. Choose your happiness now.

Waiting is wasting time. Precious time that could be spent in happiness. The time for happiness is right now.