whats the secret to enjoying life?

Accepting that everything is flawed, and enjoying things regardless.

Here's the thing: My house is, objectively, kinda shitty. It's 121 years old and it hasn't been maintained the best. It is very, very easy to let myself focus only on all the negatives and needs-done in this house, but if I do that, I will be miserable. Me being miserable will not get any of that done faster or better. Instead, I chose (and it is a choice) to focus on the good parts of it: it's MINE! No one can stop me from painting it funny colors, and the kitchen is huge, and I finally have a dedicated studio space. I'm working on a painting and I seem to only be making it worse, not better, but luckily I have tons of time to keep trying to fix it, and painting is fun to do! A friend bailed on me for a trip up north, which makes me the only single person going, but that's okay because everyone going is a great person, so I'll have a nice time regardless.

There are days that I am miserable and things seem pointless. I take those days as they come and do my best to perform happiness anyway, because letting misery dictate my actions will only make me more miserable. There are times I'm too tired for that, but to the extent I am physically and mentally able, I demand happiness from myself. Sometimes it's not real, but we are creatures of habit. We learn the actions we repeat, until mimicry becomes genuine response.

I used to respond to a lot of things with anger, just as a knee-jerk reaction. It wasn't good. I had to learn, consciously, to not do that, to take the anger and set it aside, even when it was a valid reaction, because it wasn't helpful. It took me a long, long time to learn to control my anger, and I still work on that daily. But I have improved--anger comes to me rarely now. Likewise, control of my sorrow is a lifelong battle.

Life sucks. Things are going to go wrong, and stuff you were excited about is not going to go the way you wanted it to. It's fine--healthy, even--to take a minute to mourn for disappointed expectations and loss. But if you stay in that feeling, all you will be is unhappy.

I will be happy. I will choose to be happy, over and over again until the stubborn grinding machine of my brain accepts that misery is no longer the first choice.