Happily Ever After: A Guide to Happiness

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Being the smart ass I am you never know what I will say in response to it, I may tell people I am clearly too good for anyone, or an alien born with out emotions, or that I am in a top secret relationship with both Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, as why date one when two would clearly be better. I also always want to throw in afterwards "how do you like those apples" comment, I haven't yet but maybe next time. The truth is far less entertaining and far more universally understandable, I live a life of happiness, the kind of happiness I worked really darn hard after my divorce to achieve.

Whether I am dating someone or not usually it has little or no effect on how happy I am. I too used to think that the happy ever after would be in the form of getting remarried, now I much clearer see that if I remarry or not, this isn't were happiness lies. I actually am guilty of lamenting being single, especially in the first two year or so after my separation. I had actually never been single ever as an adult until my divorce. I both didn't understand that dating after divorce with three children and a career, would be so hard.

I also didn't realize that I don't need to be in a relationship, to be internally joyfully happy.

Single Can Be Your Happy Ever After

The first three, I won't lie birthdays after my separation were beyond dismal, mostly consisting of me not celebrating, laying in my bed, mostly crying and wishing for a fast forward button to the next day. Other holidays without my children were not much better. I was dating on and off but never over birthdays and holidays, so the loneliness and sadness seamed to be amplified.

No gifts, no birthday dinners, just me alone. It never had to be like that at all. Single life like every other thing in the universe is exactly what you make it.

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It also like everything else requires effort. These are my top 7 tips to both enjoy single life and find a full-filling life with or without a partner. Be grateful, cliche but so true, do you have friends, family, children, work colleagues that care about you? If so you are blessed, reach out to them.

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Invite them places, make plans, laugh, cry, connect, be vulnerable, people do care, probably much more than you actually know. Often loneliness is self full-filling prophecy, if you hibernate alone every evening and weekend in your home, of course you will be lonely. Be positive, positive energy attracts positive people, opportunities, promotions, possibilities and happiness. After all, happiness is a choice. Laura Boyle runs Austentation: Visit Austentation for a large range of custom made hats, bonnets, reticules and Jane Austen related items.

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The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After - For Your Marriage

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Become a Jane Austen Member Membership is completely free…. The Free Jane Austen App. I'll own up to my mistakes and will make the corrections with a polite smile on my face. Spam protecting image courtesy: Can we have Jane Austen-style elegance, dignity, and happy love only with no cost to modern freedom and equality? Sprinkled throughout the book are selected tips for Janeites.

The very highest standards for yourself are perfectly compatible with the highest degree of respect and compassion for other people — in fact, they tend to go together. In Jane Austen and in life , when it comes to human beings, past performance is an excellent predictor of future results. You are the only person you have a right to control.

There are many more kernels of truth in The Guide.

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The pursuit of rational and permanent happiness is what sets Jane Austen heroines apart. They have to negotiate their way through competing desires to earn their happiness. Austen creates heroines who are able to do this, but she also shows us women who fail. Thinking about young and impulsive Lydia Bennet, the reader instantly recognizes that she stands no chance of finding happiness with Mr. Wickham after the excitement of their marriage dies down and their money runs out.

Fanny Price, who many readers find boring, remains steadfast in her convictions about Mr. Crawford, despite a great deal of pressure from family and friends. Cynical Mary Crawford was in the market for a man with status and money, which is why she first set her sights on Tom Bertram.

While Edmund was willing to overlook many of her faults, in the end their values were too different for their relationship to work. As Elizabeth Kantor observes:. The chapter titles are very descriptive: Email Subscription Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Join 6, other followers Search for:

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