2015 - A Year of Happiness

One of my New Year's traditions is to create a SmileBox photo album of the "old year" (in this case, 2015) to share with family and friends. However, I'm a bit overwhelmed with all the photos I took because for most of the year, I was taking daily photos.

Taking an interest in Positive Psychology, I did various projects aimed at increasing happiness, including #100HappyDays, snapping a photo each day for 100 days.  I actually did this twice, so I have 200 Happy Day pictures (on top of hundreds more) for 2015.

As I sort through my plethora of pictures from 2015, here are some of my thoughts:

* I really need to learn better photography skills.
* I have a truly blessed life.
* I have many people who I love and who love me.
* I have the best "job" ever now - I became an independent consultant in April and I travel all over the country to teach classes in "Agile Software Development." It's like getting paid to be on vacation.
* My family is super-awesome and I feel so thankful that they are all happy and healthy.
* I experience so much beauty every day.

I am so grateful for this life and all the beautiful people that I have the privilege of sharing it with.

One thing I learned from doing my happiness photos is that there are often happy moments or revelations that I can't photograph because they're feelings. There are so many special moments -- when a friend laughs at a joke, when you overcome a hardship, when you hear gorgeous music -- these are just a few examples of times that you can't take a picture to capture those feelings of joy.

But there's one thing that I'm certain of as I look over my stash of low-quality photographs..  I have a wonderful life full of beauty, love, and abundant happiness. This is one of those moments that I can't take a picture but it is one of pure happiness.