What is making you really happy in your life right now?

Hey everyone!

So, like a lot of people, I've had lifelong struggles with mental health. I've had tourettes since I was very young, and in my teen/adult years, I have, and do, suffer from some pretty severe anxiety and depression problems.

Despite this, I'm actually REALLY happy with my life at the moment! My medication makes many of my problems almost non existent, and I've made a few choices to really turn things around lately. I've been a part of a twitch community discord for the better part of a year now, and I've made some really great friends on there. It's also through that channel that I've finally achieved my lifelong dream of playing actual Dungeons and Dragons! I'm now in 2 weekly games, one monthly game, and I've just started running a game for the children at work!! (I'm a learning support at school). Seeing the sheer enthusiasm from the children last night made me MEGA happy. They've never role played before, and they're already coming up with all these ideas as to what they're gonna do, where they wanna go, how they met etc. It's AWESOME :D

In addition to this, I've kinda had a rennaisance with games this last year. I went through a phase of playing zero games for 3 years, after a lifetime of gaming. I've just got back into gaming a lot more, and I'm really enjoying it. Combine that with a Crunchyroll sub to start watching some really fun anime (JJBA primarily), and you could really say I'm enjoying life again!

Oh finally, I've started walking to work in the morning, and combining that with some smarter choices, I've almost lost 2 stone in weight.

So that's me! What about you guys? I'd love to hear what's going well in your life at the moment!

My kids make the whole world not so bad. Also my fiance whom I'm soon to marry is making me very happy, especially lately she's been just great.

And wargaming. Man I love wargaming. I have about 10 different projects I'd love to start but the lack of funds is keeping me at bay right now.... doesn't stop me window shopping online though planning various different forces/armies/projects.

@sombre I'm so glad things are better for you; I was smiling as I read your post. JJBA, Dungeons & Dragons, and weight loss is some type of heaven.

For me, even though this has been my lowest year emotionally after my girlfriend broke up with me on our 3 year anniversary, I've turned it into my most productive one by increasing my musical knowledge and output tenfold. I switched from a synthesizer called Massive to one called Serum, and the quality is frighteningly superior. I bought Waves Gold (one of the industry-standard music production suites), some Slate Digital plugins, got some speakers, took a few music courses on Udemy, devoured thousands of hours of info (I can now use compressors, equalizers, and limiters easily with no anxiety whatsoever), and my mixes have improved a hell of a lot already. I have started about 100 promising projects in the last 30 days, and plan to hire a choir for one piece in particular quite soon. I'm very content right now, hobby-wise.

I also decided to subscribe to Memrise and learn Japanese. According to my stats I have 93 Japanese words in my long-term memory so far. It's hard to keep consistent -- sometimes I have to spend an hour or two refreshing my memory -- but I am slowly learning the language, which is exciting for someone who came almost bottom of every language class in school. My goal is to be able to watch Japanese films and anime without subtitles in the next few years.

My LEGO and Gundam hobby has taken a backseat for now, as guests have unfortunately managed to knock or snap parts off of 15 of my 20 on display, so I have to redo most of them with glue, which made me lose some passion. I have a sick Zoids model still in its box whispering, "Build me, father!" I'll get 'round to it...

Edit: I also discovered Mystery Science Theater yesterday, and it's one of the best things I've ever watched. Hearing these robots make snide and hilarious remarks over shitty films is like the original Best of the Worst, it rules.

The weather. I love autumn, it's not too hot or too cold. It skews slightly towards cold, which I love.

Music. Been listening to a lot of Nick Cave lately. That’s been good.

I’m coming back from an elbow injury and working out again, if only with relatively light weights. It’s awesome to eat again and feel muscle fatigue.

My son mowed the lawn for the first time... just turned 10. So I figure we’ll split that duty next year.

I’ve also been playing WAY more video games than I should lately, but it’s been a Witcher 3 replay...on Xbox One X...on an LG OLED. So that’s basically like playing art.

Oh, and The Night Comes for Us came out on Netflix a few weeks back, and that’s all kinds of amazing and bananas.

Nothing.

Mostly kidding aside, first it was Obra Dinn, now it's The Missing. Both have been so refreshing and rewarding.

this tweet. the wolf is legend.

massive amounts of marijuana and red dead

Being in the live chat for the last few hours of Alex's extra life stream was euphoric, I'm still on a high from it. Also have been teaching myself acoustic guitar over the last few months and I've been finding it super therapeutic and rewarding.

While 'really happy' isn't something I'd say I am (I'm relatively content), I'd say it's this time of year (after Halloween and going into Thanksgiving/Christmas time) that always makes me happy/content. The atmosphere has always been comforting to me. I should probably have more things to be sad and worried about, but I more often than not just look at what excites me in life. I should say that doesn't help me in some ways, and it helps me in others. Oh, something that always makes me happy though is my dog (which is currently pawing at my chair to get me away from the computer).

Cats. Actually kittens.

It's been a rough year moving around and our dog passed away a few months ago. Not to mention the rise of a fascist president in my home country and how that affected relations with my friends and family.

I have 2 kittens, 1yo and 6 months, they bring a lot of joy to the house, playing with them is a great stress relief and reading/playing games with them on my lap is really comforting.

Thanks everyone for sharing so far!

My wife and I will be having our first kid in May. Couldn't be more excited to bring that little gal or guy into this world.

Which is good, because my job and the recently purchased house have been stressing me out to the max as of late.

Man, so many things. First, I'm glad to hear you're doing well, @sombre. Being able to dovetail something you're passionate about--like Dungeons and Dragons in your story--into something that brings value to others, especially children who might otherwise be struggling in some way, is very, very cool.

I've been reading so much since June. Not in terms of sheer quantity of books, but in terms of building a routine for reading. An hour here, fifteen minutes there. Reading--whatever it might be, fiction or otherwise--has reentered my life as a major passion that I try to cram into the empty spots of my day. I'd been an active reader growing up but sort of, I don't know, fell out of the habit in my mid-to-late twenties. Became self-conscious, hyper-aware almost, about the degree to which I was losing a readerly eye.

Just turned 30 in the summer and pivoted pretty hard. I juggled two books at once for the first time in years. Finished them both in the same week. I'm really proud of myself for taking the time, making the time really, and getting back to this lost passion.

It's a really unhealthy thing to say, but my girlfriend is the only good thing in my life right now.

Few things, but let's start with the rough stuff. Been dealing with chronic pain for more than a year and a half now and it's been a real challenge. My daily routine became difficult and I feel like I've been on the edge of going crazy for the last year or so (I'm seeing on the regular a doctor, a physical therapist and an actual therapist, don't worry about me I'll manage, it's just rough).

One good thing is that I'm babysitting this cat for nine months, my situation makes it so that I can't really have pet for a few years so getting one would be irresponsible, but I love the little buggers. It's a siamese cat that is so unbelievably pretty I just can't even (sorry I have no better way to explain it). He's kinda dumb and siamese need a LOT of attention, but they're also very affectionate, and having him around for the past month has been great.

The other thing is that I released my first game ever on steam yesterday (I won't name it for obvious reason, I guess it's not hard to find if you do some research) and the reception has been extremely positive. It being free helped a lot for sure, but I wasn't expecting to get those numbers this quickly (it dwarfed my itch.io launch in an hour). It gives me the motivation I need to do something bigger, maybe even a paid game one day. That's been super great.

Third thing, I like that new redesign, so here's that.

Good thread @sombre, I feel like just writing it down can help sometimes.

After four and a half years I quit my job at this machine shop I was working at that was becoming really toxic to my physical and mental health. I have a new job on the horizon that looks much better.

@fear_the_booboo: Sorry to hear about the chronic pain. But congrats about the Steam release! That's a huge accomplishment!

My fiance for sure. She makes every day worth it. I'm also doing well at my job and am working towards stepping into a new position. In my home life I've actually been playing less games, but have been making more art and spending more time just relaxing in general.

Weed.

My kids - they are at an age where they are still a pain, but are generally a lot of fun to be around. It's cool watching them play games with each other, building things out of building blocks, playing with toy cars - the usual make believe kid stuff

New established friend group - I still am friends with my old friend groups, but don't get to see them as often. I've gotten heavily into board games the past 4 years. This year I have now joined a pretty well established group and get to play games more regularly with them

Fitness - Trying to lose weight again this year. I've lost around 8kg in 3 months - last time I lost around 20kg in the same time period but then ultimately put it back on. I think I'm doing it in a more sustainable way this time, where it's becoming more of a routine that I could see myself continuing to live, rather than just losing weight and going back to my old habits. Plus, doing Couch to 5k again, it feels super rewarding and great to get to the 5k mark. Also nice not to feel completely out of breath on any walk or form of physical exercise.

I just got a pretty chunky raise!
And Red Dead + Dragon Quest 11 are giving me much enjoyment at the moment.
Plus it's a 3-day weekend in a couple days!

I just got engaged! And Red Dead is so much fun!

Red Dead is filling my days up with joy.

Playing Shenmue for the first time. Been wanting to play for years but I never had a Dreamcast so I never really got around to.

Now that it's on the PS4 though I finally got the chance and it's every bit as awesome as I had hoped.

Glad to hear things are going well for you! I personally just got out of a 1~ year depressive period that was so consistent I didn't actually realize how bad it was until being on the outside. For me the biggest thing making me feel better has been my band. We dropped our first single in June and surprisingly got booked a bunch since then. Now we're getting ready to hit the studio for an EP and I'm honestly so excited. It's definitely been stressful at times but it's been worth it so far.

Beyond that, piggybacking off your thing, I've been able to run my Pathfinder game slightly more regularly recently and it's honestly one of the most satisfying experiences for me to build this whole world and have my friends interact with it and even get super into the role play aspects.

Certainly not perfect, but it's nice to not feel the absolute worst again! And nice to see all the great things people have going on in this thread!

@sombre: Hah, that's a cool coincidence, one of my friends has been preparing our first D&D session for a few weeks and we're going to see how it goes this weekend. He's DMing and we have four players in total, so that's exciting. Made myself a Human Wizard Illusionist because that seemed like fun, and I didn't just want to power-game it like I would in a video game.

Speaking of those, Forza Horizon 4 and Red Dead Redemption 2 are doing pretty dang well for me.

Forza is just a fantastic game to just zone out to while driving cool cars in a beautiful place. I think Winter started again today or yesterday so I'm looking forward to it (though Spring is my favorite game season, Winter and Autumn are tied for second).

Meanwhile, Cowboy Simulator 2 is fantastic to get lost in. I need to try out third person (been playing in First Person + FPS Controls), but it's just also a good game to lose yourself in for a while.

After college, I started working in a tech support call center. I fixed registers over the phone for a large chain of discount stores. I didn't like it from minute one, but I was making OK money for a job right after high school. I stayed there for a little over four years for various different reasons, but I also spent the last year or so looking for other jobs. I'd spend some time finding jobs, send out application after application after application, and nobody answered. "Abhorred" is not a strong enough word to describe how much hate I had for that place as time went on. I didn't like it at first, but it didn't bother me too much for a long time and then management got shittier and shittier. By the last several months, I went in every day thinking really hard about how much that paycheck was actually worth to me. I started to simply walk away several times before I remembered that old bit about how "it's easier to get a job when you have a job", but that doesn't really mean much when you've been applying for jobs off and on for a long time and no one responds.

Anyway, if you've read all of this and haven't guessed what my post is about, then I'll just flat out say it - I got a new job. An old boss of mine worked in the IT department for the county I live in and that department had someone retire. He got in contact with me through another department. So I applied, I aced the interview, and got the job! I was so happy when the boss called me and told me that I got it that I said I'd accept before he even told me how much I would be getting paid (turns out it's quite a chunk more than I was getting paid before). I thought I had won the fucking lottery. There was even a whole month between getting the written offer letter and actually starting. I did give a two week's notice to my old job and fully intended to work it, but two hours after giving that in I had had enough and went back to my old boss and said "actually, you know, I don't think I can do this, I just quit". That felt incredible. My direct supervisor at the old job was actually a great guy and he just laughed, it was the micro managers above him that really sucked (and again, I had a written offer letter for the new job in hand).

This week was my first week and it seems pretty great. There aren't many people there, most of them have been there for a significant amount of time (several for decades), so I don't really have any reason to think that my very good first impressions are wrong. Even if they do turn sour, the new job adds something much better to my resume and I'm getting paid a whole lot more, so that's two points above the old job. As such, I've been on something of a month-long high of happiness, punctured by periods where I'm terrified that fate will, in some form, give me the middle finger and put me back in the same position I was in or worse. Somewhere in between those I have to remind myself that no, this isn't a dream and no, I'm not going to wake up and have to go back to getting yelled at about shitty, out of date registers every single day.

It's corny as heck but my partner and my cat are making things really manageable for me lately. My partner is supportive of me and my cat is a great source of unconditional love!

My cat spends a lot of time hanging out with me as I've recently taken my first in depth stab at The Witcher 3. She's there with me through late night Witcher sessions and it's a source of great ease for my mind. I was recently laid off from a gaming industry job (nothing that's been in the headlines) just due to company growth and shifting. I survived the first two waves of layoffs but the third wave (whyere we lost a whopping 45 employees) got me.

I've been using this time of unemployment to finally sink some times into games that I've been shelving for way too long. I've also started making discussion based gaming videos as a hobby. Some days suck really hard. But these three things have really been giving me the will to push forward. Heck yeah!

My kids, specifically my twins who just turned 1 in October. This is such a fun age, and they are so happy and giggly that just being around them lifts me up. Seeing how proud my 1 year old son is when he stands up on his own and that gap tooth grin he gets is a joy that I feel like can melt away any sorrow. My 1 year old daughter loves to cuddle and babble so I know she is always willing to hear my woes and hug them out.

My wife and feeling our soon-to-be-born kid kicking is making me pretty happy.

I don`t know! Right now I`m in search of this.

@cikame: What is this candy? I want these too

I left my job in February of this year and attempted a total career change. I enrolled in a web development immersive bootcamp that ran from March to June and have been on the job search for 6 months since the program ended. Yesterday I accepted an incredible offer from a dream organization as a software developer. I can finally start working towards a house and marrying my partner and just really building a life together.

I know I should be happy, but I've got impostor syndrome up to the gills. I'm just filled with worry and dread that I'm not going to be able to perform up to the expectations of the position, or fail spectacularly and disappoint my loved ones. I want to be happy and I know I should be, but it's just real hard sometimes.

Weed, Games, Anime (especially Gintama), Nick Drake, talking shit and drinking with friends, people falling over, swearing toddlers. All help me feel happier.

Speak for your self dude, that stuff helps a lot of folk.

I quit smoking weed about 5 months ago because I started a new job that drug tests it's entry level employees. Once I was in the clear, I expected to go right back to playing Witcher 3 in one hand and taking a bong hit in the other.

Honestly, I don't think I would have been able to finished school without it but I'm much happier than I was high these days. I dunno.

@interlude: Yeah I've heard of a lot of people being happier after stopping smoking, I stopped for quite a few years and I was much less happy. Starting smoking weed again was the best thing I ever did when it comes to my overall happiness. Different strokes I guess, piss tests are a pain but nothing that can't be fixed / cheated.

@sombre: Sounds great, I'm happy for you! As for me, I've been working on my first video game, all by myself. It's almost done and the release date is almost here! (January end) So although it's stressing me out at the moment, you could say it's potentially going to make me very happy when it's out! :)

My cats make me really happy. Got three of the fuzzy goofballs and all cheer me up in different ways. The oldest likes her belly rubbed, the littlest one and second oldest loves to sit on my lap, and the baby but also the biggest loves to crawl all over and knead me.

That I can troll both art students and anime fans by painting Hatsune Miku holding a sign saying "Ban anime" in distemper.

...Oh, yeah. And also being a year away from graduating with a BFA is nice I guess.

new job, and already quickly surpassing current role.

I love positive threads.

Don't get the attraction for weed at all. Is it supposed to make you fear that you're going to die and go to hell and/or be stuck in an infinite time loop / rendered permanently insane? That's the effect it's had on me. Never again with that shit. Not recommended.

Right now, honestly, not especially happy (but not unhappy either) - but that's because I'm back to living with my parents and I'm lonely and bored most of the time. However, will very soon be moving to my favorite city, where I actually have some friends, to start a great new job. So, definitely looking forward to that.

Arrested Development (particularly the original run) never fails to cheer me up at least a little. Despite the depravity and amorality on display (to an extent) it still manages to feel warm and cozy.

I would also say having been recently introduced to it Portlandia also gives me the same sort of good vibes, even if it does get a little weird and forced at times. Definitely a new favorite of mine.

Long bike rides lately are also a good way to relieve stress and center myself, especially since I am dealing with some pretty stressful shit lately. I think I need to take a long break from quite a few things in my life though, honestly.

Thanks so much everyone for posting some postivity in this thread. It's great to hear so many people are having an enjoyable life atm :D

Glad to be cold again at my Cottage on Georgian Bay Ontario testing out my winterized

Happiness is defined differently for every person.

Early this year my dad passed away and my family believed I was taking his death okay but really I just had to continue on living. Any happy memory I had of my dad brought me down tremendously because I knew I would never have new moments with my dad. While this seems quite depressing I think I have found my happiness in the people who supported me after my dad's death. I enjoy the company of one particular friend who genuinely makes me laugh and feel happy, and she always has my back.

https://appsync.biz/dafont/https://downloader.vip/mapquest/https://appsync.biz/filehippo/

@arso96: I'm sorry for your loss, but happy to hear about your happiness!

Did my hearing for disability on Tuesday and my lawyer seemed pretty confident for approval, then two days later did my neuropsych memory test and I'm clear of Doctor visits until next year. I can finally start enjoying my favorite holiday season!