Hello Happy.

Hello there.

By way of proper digital introductions I felt it was quite necessary to take time to provide you with a little insight into why this blog exists and why it's titled Hello Happy.

Over the course of the next couple of months, you and I will get to know each other much better. We'll start with today and look forward, in the similar fashion in which I live my life but I promise to give you flashbacks into my past experiences that have helped shape my outlook on things and the way that I choose to live everyday.

Here's a fair warning...I tend to "dumb things down" a bit so please know that this is never directed towards you, my beloved, hopefully soon-to-be addicted reader but more for my sake in truly digesting the outside world and spitting it out in the unique, candid, outspoken fashion that I'm truly known for. It also has to do with the fact that I'm from West Virginia and I swear on everything I never received a proper eduction but somehow, someway found a way to make it to where I am today.

My hope is that what you will read will provide you with a refreshing sense of what finding happiness really means. That it will motivate you to be motivated even when life appears to be un-motivational. That you will laugh. Laughter after all is the key to flat abs, a lighter step and old age. And as much as you won't want to you will cry. We will face reality together and we'll help each other make it through the rough spots -- because there will be plenty.

I will share with you things that I hope will provoke change, thought, ideas, and creativity. All intangible possessions that we all seek even when we aren't aware what we are looking for. Sometimes I will babble about things that on the surface don't seem to possess any real meaning and some of you will relate while some of you wonder why you keep reading this blog.

So getting to the point (something I have a difficult doing) of why I titled this blog Hello Happy. There was a book that a very good friend of mine gave me several years ago called "The Art of Happiness" with the Dalai Lama. My guess is, that several of you have read it. And if you haven't, no matter what religion you are, I believe it's worth a read. It was one of the books that has helped shaped my life, along with several others that I'll share along the way.

Every day we wake up. Sometimes ready to roll and sometimes ready to crawl back under the covers. At the end of each day though, the one thing that we all have in common is that we're all seeking happiness in some form or another. I'm not going to get deep on you yet, but happiness is our virtue. And the stories that I will share with you promise to provide a hand in taking a step closer to that small nugget of hope that when we look in the mirror each day that we can see ourselves and smile back at the person looking at us.

So, here we go! Let's say hello to happy.

Signing Off Happy,
Renee Brennan