Hello there!
Pretend for a minute you have a big house, a nice car, a good source of income, the latest trends, a fitness instructor, good medical insurance… But you are not happy. Shouldn’t you be?

What is happiness?
I find that the more I live on this earth, the more I find out happiness is extremely elusive. When I was little, I heard someone say happiness comes in drops and the Creator gives you a dropper to last you your whole life.

At that moment, I did not understand what I was being told. “Dropper?” I thought… What in the h…?
Now that I am older and have seen and experienced a little in this world, I am beginning to understand it.

My goal in my 20s was to make sure I could provide for my son the way I was not provided for. This meant having 2 jobs, going to school and not seeing him a whole lot. Now that I have resigned my Full-Time position, I feel free. Granted, I still need the full-time income but I can mix and match different skills and different projects to make sure I can continue providing the basic necessities.

I have realized the Disney trip we take every year is not worth me working all year long and not spending time with my child. I have realized that they don’t really care about the material things if they cannot spend time with you. I vowed to never be the parent that was never around and I feel as if I have failed, until now.

My happiness is:

• My son’s smile. Is the “aha!” moment when I help him with his homework and he understands it
• When he asks me to come work at his school because I explain things better than his teacher
• When he brings his classmates over for me to go over the homework with them
• When he brags to his friends about my cooking
• When he knows I will be there for his Karate competitions
• When I meet with his music teacher
• When I go for a walk with him
• When I was trying to teach him how to ride a bicycle

I was missing out on all those things with my son, if not even more. I thought I was working towards happiness but I was actually working against it.

My son is about to be 10 years old: I still have some time. Think for a minute: what is happiness to you? Is happiness taking you away from your family and children?
I’d much rather spend evenings cuddling up to my son watching a movie of his choice than to be working until 1:00 am on school nights just to make sure that Disney trip happens next year.
Think, reflect, analyze, reinvent your schedule. And may you always be happy!

Thank you for reading and buenas tardes,

Wen