Your emotion is a choice
My dad is always cranky.
Rarely a smile. Always something wrong - with you, the world, or the room he’s in.
And he’s become a daily reminder to me: life is what you make of it.
There’s a phrase I love from Brad Stulberg, high-performance coach and author:
“Happiness is reality minus expectations.”
If you want rain and it’s sunny - you’re unhappy.
If it’s raining and you want sun - you’re also unhappy.
It’s not the weather. It’s your expectations.
Maybe the real game in life is learning to want what is.
Not passively. Not with fake gratitude.
But with a sense of power: I can choose how I feel about what’s here.
Yes, we keep striving. Yes, we go for the milestones, for growth, for improvement.
But maybe it’s also more useful to focus on the joy of creating something better, and not on the incompleteness of your life without it.
Joy doesn’t arrive when things are done.
It’s available while we’re doing them.
What expectation do you need to let go of to feel more happy today?
