I'm Happy for You...

I mentioned in one of my posts last week that I like reading. Recently I started a new book called I'm Happy for You (Sort Of...Not Really): Finding Contentment In A Culture Of Comparison by Kay Wills Wyma. I haven't gotten very far into the book yet (43/218 pages), but I've already been highlighting lines like crazy. Kay tells her own personal experiences with comparison and offers remedies to fix this mindset and discover happiness. This book has been opening my eyes to how flawed my own mindset is about myself and my life. Because I am finding this book so helpful and eye-opening I thought I would share some of the parts I thought are important. (I also hope this gives some insight to just how awesome this book is)

• "It isn't what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about." -Dale Carnegie 

• "What's Obsessive Comparison Disorder, you ask? It's the new OCD I've coined to describe our compulsion to constantly compare ourselves with others, producing unwanted thoughts and feelings that drive us into depression, consumption, anxiety and all-around discontent."

• "Why would an outfit choice hijack our thoughts and prevent us from enjoying the people around us?
• This one really made me think. My first thought while getting ready to go anywhere is what will everyone else be wearing or what is the "dress code" of the event. There have been times that my night has been ruined because of my thoughts and how I felt like I wore the wrong thing.

• "Comparison is the thief of joy" - Theodore Rosevelt 

• "Comparison, like an electric car, arrives silently on the scene and catches our attention through envy, "what ifs" and "if onlys," fair and not fair, measuring up, and striving for enough."

• "Being happy for someone activates a couple of letter changes in the word comparison. It removes ri and adds si, shifting th letters and our focus, moving our eyes off self to consider others. And in that shift -- in saying, or at least thinking, I'm happy for you -- we move from comparison to compassion."

• "Looking at what we lack prevents us from noticing how sweet the world already is. But when we shift our focus from what could be to what actually is, we find extraordinary joy in our ordinary lives."

• "Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content."  - Helen Keller

Before discovering this book I had no idea just how much I compared myself and my life to others. I'm incredibly excited to see how much my mindset changes after finishing reading it (I've already noticed a significant change in myself because I'm aware now) and I highly recommend all of you to read this!