I decide.

I am a firm believer that I can decide to be happy. I also believe I can decide to be sad. Most of the time I decide to be happy. However, sometimes I let sadness wash over me like polluted water. I don't know if it is because I don't want to exert the energy to overcome it (a pleasant way of saying I'm too lazy) or because it is too hard and the tide of sadness crashes to fiercely upon me. Either way, sometimes I decide to be sad. There is something cathartic about being sad for a moment. Perhaps it supports the concept in 2 Nephi 2:11: "For there must needs be, that there is an oppostition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one..." The catharsis is experienced in the rebound from sad to happy. Because of the opposition between the two emotions, I earn a greater appreciation for happiness. I think this is an eternal concept. God most certainly feels happiness and sadness. I wonder how He deals with the tidal wave of sadness. Does He let it wash over Him. Does He allow many moments of disappointment, pain or grief? I don't know if a perfected being does. But I do. I think it is sometimes alright to decide to be sad.
The one thing that never fails to make me happy is the darling smile of my little Norah. She's found her smile and man, does she work us with that smile. I think I would run the perimeter of the world to see just one of those smiles. When we pick her up out of her bassinet, she always grins from ear to ear. She coos and laughs with her mouth stretched wide with her perfect pink gums revealed. She is so aware of the things around her and seems to not be able to take it all in fast enough. She loves to see her Daddy. When he comes home from school, whether hungry or tired, she still manages to greet him with several smiles. I find myself grinning the majority of the day because of little things she does. So needless to say, I almost always decide to be happy.