What "Building a Life of Happiness" means to me

I titled my blog "Building a Life of Happiness"..... what does that mean? What is happiness?!?! "Happiness" is just one of those words that is thrown around with many degrees of meaning, kind of like 'love". I mean, does anyone really think that when someone says,"mmmmm I really really love this hamburger" that it has the same meaning as a 80 year old man telling his wife of 55 years that he Loves her? Didn't think so. Neither am I talking about the happiness that is found inside a Happy Meal from McDonald's.
When I say "Building a Life of Happiness" I am talking about a completeness. The filling of being whole without parts of your life missing. It is the feeling that you get when you find something or someone that fills a hole is your life.  This is why I chose the word "Building". I don't imagine I will ever be able to finish this. It is a never ending project that is built with hard to obtain building materials. Sometimes you think to yourself," I'll put that right there, that feels good to me" and you move on. Then years later you realize that you need to remodel your life in order to allow for change/growth. By no means does that mean that you screwed up, it just means you are changing and that is good. Sometimes change is uncomfortable but that is exactly what you need in order to reach your goals. Goals are what pushes us out of our comfort zone and into changing our live so that we can maintain and remodel our lives of happiness. One of the scriptures that I found on my mission that really struck home with me on this subject is the story of Peter when he attempted to walk on water to go to Christ. The story goes that Peter and the other apostles were on a boat in the middle of the sea in a storm. Jesus appeared to them walking across the sea on water and called the apostles to come to him. Peter took up the challenge and got out of a perfectly good boat and placed his feet on water and started actually walking on water to go to Christ. After a few steps Peter began  to get distracted from his goal of reaching Christ and started paying attention to other things. When Peter did this he began to sink and called out to Christ to help him. Christ stretch forth his hand and pulled Peter up to him helping him in his trial.
Why did Peter get out of that boat to attempt something that was not only hard, it was scientifically impossible! I feel that it is because Peter KNEW what he wanted in life. He KNEW what his goals were and he was NOT going to reach them sitting back and drinking his margarita in his safe little boat. He needed to get up and move. Go and do something that was difficult, to put it mildly.
My Goal is to BE happy. I need to get up and move. Challenge myself and if I find myself faltering, I can call on God and those people that God has placed in my life to help me get there.
To build a life of happiness is as complex and it is individual. No two lives are the same. What will work for me may not work for another, but I do feel that there are some building materials that must be used to create the framework and foundation for such a life, AND some material that will corrode such a life. These essential build materials for the framework, as I understand them, are personal growth, relationships and a desire to help other and since those are the essential building materials for the framework of Happiness, then the foundation is made up of Love.
The best part about these basics of Happiness is that they don't cost a penny but are worth more then anything else in this world. Benjamin Franklin wrote: " The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. YOU have to catch it yourself".

My life at a glance

It is just past midnight. A few minutes ago I was lying in my bed with my eyes closed and my mind raging with an upheaval of emotional turmoil. Memories of family and friends were flashing through my mind asking me," Is everything OK?". All I could say is ,"Sure...". I don't know what to say. I don't know where to begin. It is so complex, how could you understand? Sometimes I would try to explain that things are not OK, that my heart is broken and my life feels empty", but every time I tried my words would come out more like a balls of yarn, mixed up, chaotic, and senseless, instead of cohesive sentences. I am trapped inside of my emotions, unable to express what I am feeling in order to free myself. This is the purpose for which I am now sitting in front of my computer this night writing down my thoughts. I want to free myself from this emotional prison in which I have trapped myself alone, and get out, take in a breath of peace, and open myself up to what life is all about, Happiness.

To start this blog I feel that is it important to introduce myself. Hello my name is Jake. I grew up in the small town of Coalville, Utah until I was 12 years old, then my family and I moved to Bountiful, Utah where I have basically lived since, with little exceptions. I am the second youngest of 6. I have 4 sisters and 1 bother. My parents have been married  for... well a long time and all of my sisters and brother are also married and have kids.
I grew up as a very active child. My mom always tells me how she had a hard time keeping track of me. Once, when I was two years old, she tells me, I was at home with her and when she turned her back, I snuck off. When she turn back around I was going and started looking for me. It wasn't long before she heard a pitter patter across the roof. The thought came back to my mom, like a bolt of lightening, that my dad had left the ladder up against the house the day before after doing something on the roof, and that I was now on the roof. She burst outside and climbed the ladder to find me only a diaper running across the roof. She ran across the roof just in time to grab me before I jump off in an attempt to fly. She has told me since how she explained to me that if I had jumped off the roof I would have been hurt. I responded to her that nothing could hurt me.
It is by the love of my mother that I survived my younger years and was granted the gift to mature. Through Junior High and most of High School I spent a small amount of my time studying and most of my time goofing off with friends. I started playing football when I was 13 and played until my Senior Year of High School when I decided that I didn't like organized sports. Instead I engaged myself in playing paintball, snowboarding, video games (Halo) and hanging out with friends. During high school I never had a serious girl friend and had never kissed a girl. My life was pretty simple through high school without involving romance in it.
After high school, at the age of 19, I sent in my request to go on an LDS mission for two years. I was called to the Spanish speaking mission of Asuncion, Paraguay and left in December of 2005. While I learn many truth about life, there were two in particular that helped me draw up the plans on out I would construct my life. The first truth was that I needed to serve others and forget about myself. The second was that I needed to constantly challenge myself  and to not get comfortable while life pasted me by. Towards the end of my mission in Paraguay, thought started turning to home and what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I knew that first off, I would need a career that would always challenge me and allow me to serve others selflessly. My first thought was to join the military, particularly the marines. I had always been drawn to the physical and mental challenge that the United States Marines face. In fact, while I was a Senior in high school I was assigned a senior project that would involve producing a report on the career we wanted pursue after high school. I did mine on being a Marine which included doing a job shadow. I was convinced that it was the life for me. What job out there is more selfless and challenging then being a Marine? The only problem with that was I also wanted to have a family, and being a Marine meant that I would be gone most of the time and would be moving from place to place, making it difficult to have a family. So I revisited the subject on what I wanted to do for my life career. While I was facing this question on my mission, I was asked to accompany a United State military medical group in a small town in Paraguay to translate. When I got to where the medical group was stationed in a small school in a remote town, I found hundreds and hundreds of people lined up seeking medical attention. I was quickly put to work translating for doctors and nurses who were providing a variety of medical services to the people. I remember ask one of the medical personnel how long they thought it would take to see all of the people that had come. He responded that they would most likely be done by that afternoon because they didn't have enough supplies to care for everyone that showed up. I spent the rest of day translating and found myself enthused by all of the diseases and illnesses that we came across. I enjoy talking to the medical personnel and learning about what they were doing. I was amazed by how much they needed to know to do what they were doing and thought this is job for me. This is exactly what I want to do with my life.

At the end of 2005 I returned home from serving my two years as a missionary. I started working for my dad as wielder and enrolled in school with the goal of getting my bachelors in nursing. A few months later I meet a girl in a religion studies class named was Alyssa. Prior to meeting her I had never kissed a girl nor did I ever really have the confidence to speak with a girl one on one, without getting overly nervous, but Alyssa made it easy. She asked me out and from there we hit it off. She was easy to talk to and I really enjoyed her company. During our first date I remember asking her how old she was. When she told me that she was only 18 I was taken back and blown away by her maturity. I had thought of leaving her because she was so young but she had already captured me with her corky fun loving personality and beauty. I was smitten. We dated. I had my first kiss. I asked her to be my girl friend and later asked her to be my wife. She said,"Yes!". Alyssa was then 19 but I had given her my heart and I couldn't take it back. She suggested that we had a long engagement, waiting a year before getting married but in my young eager mind, I thought," why wait if I know I want to married you and you know that you want to marry me?". She resisted me for a short time saying that we should get married in a year but at my persistence we got married 5 months later. On August 4th 2006 we were married in the Salt Lake City Temple and from there..... well lets just say it wasn't long before I started regretting my decision to marry this wonderful girl. She simply wasn't ready to be married at such a young age. Details of the next two years of our marriage really aren't necessary, but by the time our two year anniversary rolled around 2008, I was done. I felt a tremendous amount of guilt for marrying this girl that I loved so much when she wasn't ready to be married. She did love me but just wasn't ready at the time to be married to me, something I just didn't understand. We separated and I was looking into getting a divorce. She came back a few weeks later in tears having had an experience that made her realize how much she loved me and that she really did want to be married to me. I was overcome with love and joy that she loved and wanted to be married to me. We got back together and remained married.
It was also during this time that I hiked my first mountain. Living at the foot the the Wasatch Mountains for most of my life, I had always looked up at them and wondered if anyone ever hiked them. I remember when I was younger asking my dad if he knew anyone that had ever hiked up Timpanogos (One of the prominent mountains in the Wasatch Range). He told me that my great uncle.... (or one of my ancestors, not sure who) would hike Timpanogos every year until he got too old. This story stuck with me and made me often think about what it would be like to stand up on top of Timpanogos looking down. For a long time I really wanted to hike up there but couldn't find anyone to go with me.

On August 23, 2008 I decided I was done waiting to see if anyone would go with me and alone I hiked up the Majestic Mount Timpanogos. I can vividly remember that hike. All of  the muscle from my toes to my hips cramps up by the time I was 2/3rd up that mountain. I could barely move. I remember having to lye down on the trail to try and relax my muscles. Once the cramps were gone if I so much as flex any of my leg muscle they would tighten up again making my legs useless for another 2 minutes. I hobbled along for nearly 2 more hours in excruciating pain toward the summit. A few hundred feet from the summit my legs finally gave up trying to stop me and I summited my first mountain after 5 hours. Since then I have made climbing mountains, aka Mountaineering, a major part of my life. I have climb over 90 unique peaks with multiple ascents via a variety of different routes. This love of the mountains and nature in general has been, in many ways, a life line to happiness and peace in my life.

Over the next 3 years of being married to Alyssa, I think thing were pretty good. We still had our disagreements, although not to the extent as in the first two years of our marriage. We were able to work through most everything. I personally don't any lingering bad memories from those years. Our marriage as a whole had improved dramatically. I felt like we had finally worked out the major kinks in our relationship and were just working on the smaller things... and the life long pursuit of improving ourselves. I believe it was in 2009 Alyssa went back to school at The University of Utah to start working towards getting her Bachelors in Piano Performance. In 2010 I graduated from the University with my Bachelors in Nursing Science and started working for the University Hospital as a Registered Nurse (RN).

In 2011 for our 5th anniversary we took a trip to the island of Kauai in Hawaii. The trip was phenomenal. We essential put away our phones and disconnected from everything else in our lives and just focused on being with each other. We spent 7 nights camping on the beach while we went hiking, snorkeling, sea kayaking and 2 nights in a nice secluded bed and breakfast. It was exactly how I imagined being married should be. I learned that our marriage was at its best when we weren't being sabotaged by the distractions of life. 2011 finished out just about as perfectly as I could have ever planned. We ended up buying a house in Bountiful after getting back from Hawaii and in November we got our dog Nebo. That little dog is one of the sweetest animals God ever put on this earth. Then 2012 came around......

..... 2012..... what a difficult year to put into words. I had many profoundly positive and negative experiences that I will need much more then this one post to try and put in words. For the purpose of this post I will just be staying on the subject of my marriage for the most part.

Up and to this year, Alyssa and I had pasted through many difficult times and remained together as I had previously explain in this post. What I had not previously explained though was the deep run wounds and scares that we carried with us from those times. The worst of which was our damaged line of communication. It is because of this damaged line of communication that I have a hard time pin pointing when things started going south. Honestly when 2012 began I felt like things were going pretty good. I was still riding the high of our time in Kauai. I felt that if I could recreate time at least every other week when Alyssa and I could just  be together without any other distractions, like we had in Kauai, we could substantial improve our relationship. Unfortunately the life style that Alyssa had chosen for herself didn't permit us too much time together. She seemed to have a way of keeping herself so busy it was nauseating trying to find time with her. Alyssa's life was largely taken up by her school, which began to intensify that spring in preparation for her junior piano recital. When she wasn't spending hours at school or at the piano practicing, she was teaching piano to students and when she wasn't doing that she was doing Crossfit and sometime during the beginning of 2012 she also began doing triathlons and the training necessary. She literally didn't have time to think. I was left alone at home with no one I felt I could talk to. Fortunately I was still very much engaged in hiking/climbing mountains that provided me with a way to release my built up energies and I had my dog Nebo who was always happy to spend time with me. Between these two resources I was able to release my frustrations and find happiness despite the absence of my wife. I keep telling myself that I just needed to support her and be patient with her while she finished her schooling. I keep trying to find time together. In May I went to Kenya to do some humanitarian work with a group called "Koins for Kenya". When I returned home Alyssa's stress levels were increasing from all that she had going on and I learned that she was having a hard time facing down some childhood experiences that had been lurking in the subconscious corners of her mind. She began to see a therapist to help her deal with her childhood. I continued to reach out to her in an attempt to be there for her. It was difficult to see her suffer but she just turned away from me and I found myself even more alone in our relationship then I was before. Spring turned to summer and summer turned to fall. The lack of marital maintenance aloud time to decay the emotional flesh of our relationship down to the bear bones of financial and legal obligations. I was starving, gnawing on the emotionally rich memories of our marriage. I begged Alyssa to once again work with me in cultivating a strong and health marriage upon which we could feed, but she was removed. She had changed her mind and her heart in an attempt to combat a lingering childhood and current stresses that she created for herself. She avoid me on our anniversary, Thanksgiving, my birthday, and Christmas. I was devastated. Then it all came to a climax on New Year's Day. After going our with my dog, Nebo, on a hike I returned to an empty home. Alyssa had gone out with her friends on New Years Eve. She stayed at her friends home that night and all of New Years day. After coming home I was frustrated. I wanted to know what was going on. Why was she always gone? I went looking through her things to find clues as to the life that she had been living. What I found was what put our marriage under the guillotine. I found 2012 Christmas card in which she was with another guy and his family. I couldn't breath, because my heart stopped beating for a few minutes. The rest is all history.

Today, one month later, I find myself once again alone in my home. Alyssa has moved out of the house and she tells me that I am the one that must cut the rope holding the blade of the guillotine. I find myself contemplating for hours and hours what I should do. She want to work things out. She says she loves me, but needed to leave the house to get away and have sometime to herself to attempt to repair her emotionally damaged life. There are days were I have raise the axe to cut the rope but lost all strength to do so at the last minute. This is the most difficult thing I have ever attempted to do. How can I just simply end a marriage to someone that has had my heart for 6 years?

Although this is a very sad and disturbing part of my life, it is just that. It is only a part of my life. Among the difficulties of marriage I have grown to become a better Man. I believe that life is never just black and white. It is never just good or never just bad. Life is a mixture of experiences in which we get to decide weather they will effect us in a positive or negative way. I choose to find the positive in life as often as I can and with those positive experiences I am building a life of happiness.