I do some surveys online in my free time… I rack up points to hopefully redeem for a pitifully small amount of money. But I have time, I have lots of opinions, so why not actually put them to use. Someone wants to hear me.

Today’s survey was about happiness. I’m not really sure what use a survey like this would be put to. They asked all kinds of questions, asked you to rank your level of happiness in multiple life areas (life, body, work, family, relationship, etc etc), to select what things would make you happier, to evaluate if you were working to improve your happiness in areas. It really made me think.

First of all, I’m really pretty happy with my life overall. I know I’ve been a miserable bitch for a lot of my life (no really – even cutting out the depression I dealt with for many years, I’m a pessimistic type-A who freaks out a lot), but the past 6-7 months since finding out I was carrying an alien in my belly have been freaking fabulous. And it’s not like anything else about life has changed – same jobs, same clients, same house, same dogs and cats. But my priorities sure have shifted. I could do nothing all day but lay here and feel my baby move around inside me and be extremely happy with my life. I’ve become a happy person, and it’s a little weird to be honest.

There are a few things I realized in greater clarity while I was rating things in this survey:

* My friendships are very important to me. I may not have a lot of friends in “real” life but I have a lot of online friends that are near and dear to me. I admit this blog is much more of a one-sided conversation and is maintained mostly for my own records. But the forums I belong to have led me to some really great people. And no, while I don’t go over and eat pizza and go shopping and “hang out” with my friends, we share laughs and photos and information and form very important emotional support systems. They are a large part of my happiness.

* I understand now that my ideal job is not working from home. I used to think it was. But you know what? It doesn’t make me happy.

* Money does make me happy. Not having it, but spending it on the house. There were these questions like “Would you pay $10,000 to be prettier?” And I was all like, “Ummm, gimme the $10,000!” To have a nicer body, to be sexier, to have a personal assistant… whatever. Just give me an additional bedroom on the house, ged rid of the panelling, finish the basement, and put up trim everywhere and I’ll be a freaking happy lady. I have priorities, apparently. So this work that’s being done on my house, it is definitely making me feel happy!

* Despite knowing specific areas that I need to improve in order to be happier – like keeping in better shape, keeping a cleaner house, and organizing my home and work life better – I don’t do a very good job at it. Or even trying to. Hell even the house improvements… was there really any reason that I couldn’t have just painted the hallway or the ceiling? No. Just laziness. :( I know that “rest” and “alone time” and “time spent with my hobbies/things I love to do” are high on my list, but it’s a darn shame that I can’t seem to motivate myself to do things that would actually make me feel happier in the long run. I really need to work on that.

Enough introspection. Time to go read a book before bed…. if I can manage to get into a comfortable enough reading position.