I can honestly say right now I am the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. And what I know for sure, is that happiness is a choice.

I did a lot of work to get where I am. But before the reading and research, before logging months and months of entries in a gratitude journal, before packing a camera in my purse every day in the hopes of capturing joy out in the world, came making up my mind to be happy.

The first step, in everything in life, is making a choice.  We make choices in every moment.  Right now, you are choosing to read this article rather than fold laundry, watch TV, or give the dog a bath.  Right now, because I want to spread joy, optimism and inspiration to millions, I am choosing to write this article rather than wander into the kitchen and fill a little bowl with M&Ms for a late night snack, which would really only bring joy to me.  At least until regret sets in and I begin calorie counting.  The point is, we choose every second. Even when we lay about doing nothing, we are making a choice every moment to continue to lay about, rather than getting up and doing anything else.

We seem to equate choosing with changing. Often when we stay the course we feel as though we’re not making any choices at all, yet we are making choices—we’re just not making different ones.

It has been said that we think 60,000 thoughts every day. And ninety percent of them are the same thoughts we had the day before. With that kind of habitual thinking it’s no wonder choosing different thoughts can be challenging.  What you have to ask yourself is, are you happy now?  And if not, what are you willing to do to be happy?

For me it was a matter of becoming so uncomfortable where I was that more than wanting change, I felt it was necessary. I got to the miserable, prickly place where staying the course I was on was no longer an option.  I didn’t like myself depressed and feeling worthless.  At the moment that realization overtook me, I made a different choice.  I chose to be happy instead—to enjoy my life and be a joyful person.

While we must first have the thought to make the choice, thinking I want to be happy and choosing to be happy are two distinguishable things. I think all kinds of thoughts.  They swim through my mind like the puffy white seeds of a cottonwood tree float through the air in spring.

There is nothing puffy about choice. Choice is decisive, it’s committing, it’s action. It’s taking your hand, reaching out and grabbing hold of one of those puffy white floating thoughts and putting it in a planter with soil and water.

It is through choice that we begin to create our lives.  Through choice we grow and feed and prune our days into the life we want.

Want more joy in your life? Take the first step: choose it.