Happiness Month! Day 3: Anticipation

Today is Day 3 of Happiness Month and it will be continuing all month long. This all started at the Secret Society of Happy People and if you want to pop over there and become an Amused Member, you can get a Free 31 Types of Happiness poster. As you can tell by my daily #HappinessHappens tweets and Facebook posts, I’ve been a member for a long, long time!

Over the next days, we’ll be going over all 31 ways to Add Happiness Every Day. You know too often I hear young people say “He doesn’t make me happy” or “I wish she would make me happy” but you know what? Happiness is not something that someone else “makes” you feel. You make choices in your life that can affect your happiness….and ultimately you CHOOSE whether to be happy every day or not. You can also choose to do things that would add happiness to your life every single today.

Today, to add happiness to your life: ANTICIPATE HAPPINESS!! Part of the fun of some things is that you anticipate how fun it will be to see their face, or taste that sweet taste. Bring happiness to your day by anticipating the joy!

Anticipate is a verb, so we know right off the bat that some sort of action is required. We have to DO something. Anticipate means:

to realize beforehand; foretaste or foresee: to anticipate pleasure.
to expect; look forward to; be sure of: to anticipate a favorable decision.
to perform (an action) before another has had time to act.
to answer (a question), obey (a command), or satisfy (a request) before it is made: He anticipated each of my orders.
to nullify, prevent, or forestall by taking countermeasures in advance: to anticipate a military attack.

In a marriage, especially one that has weathered the storm of an affair, anticipation is one of the requirements for reconciliation. You need realize before it’s actually here (as in foresee) that your marriage can be happy and loving. You need to foretaste a happy, loving, mature future together. You need to LOOK FORWARD to feeling love and pleasure with your spouse. You need to perform loving, thoughtful acts before your spouse even has the time to act! You need to satisfy your spouse’s requests–meet their needs–before they even make the request. And you need to take counter-measures to prevent any attacks to your marriage from the outside!