Happiness manifesto

I really enjoyed this post on the Happiness Project, about a happiness manifesto - really just a list of short aphorisms to guide you toward happiness. I have a tenuous grasp on happiness at best (especially lately - jeesh!) so I jotted down a few ideas for my own Manifesto in my Moleskine:

1. smile, for God's sake!
2. have a laugh.
3. go whole hog.
4. make something.
5. avoid small people. [not a dig at little people - I mean "small" in the figurative sense!]
6. clean up and get organized - you'll feel better.
7. fake it til you make it.
8. appreciate the small things.
9. give love.
10. never buy cheap shoes.
11. rise above.
12. pay yourself first.
13. want what you have.

The thing about these little mantras is that the perspective you bring to them means everything - which makes one's Happiness Mantra deeply, intensely personal. If you read these and think they all sound stupid, well, so be it.

I hope y'all appreciated #10 - never buy cheap shoes. I think we all know what that one means! I recently purged a bunch of shoes; they were all cheapies that I didn't wear, plus one pair of black Faconnable slingbacks I bought at Nordstrom for $150 right out of college (the price seemed ridiculous at the time, but as soon as I slipped them on I was hooked). I wore those puppies to death at my first job, until they stank (I don't really do pantyhose or socks) and were falling apart. Ah, the memories! I can only hope to wear other pairs of beautiful shoes to death.

...and thus, another post devolved into a discussion of shoes.