Follow Friday #1

For my first Follow Friday post I want to start with In pursuit of Happiness. The blog is written by the wonderful Britt Reints. I think she was like my second or third twitter follower, but I have only recently begun reading her amazing blog. The blog itself is about a lot of things, but mostly it is about being happy and her own pursuits and challenges in that area.  She talks a lot about living a happy lifestyle, her own personal growth, travel, relationships, and what inspires her. She is also an insanely talented photographer with beautiful pictures on her site and on Instagram. Over the last 10 months Brit has done something incredibly brave. She packed up her family and started traveling, supporting her family as a freelance writer. Here is a quote from her website:”This site is part travel blog, part personal development blog, part online journal of an ordinary woman obsessed with being happy. It exists to help you and I figure out together how to be happier.

It wasn’t always that way.

In 2005, I started writing a personal blog under the pseudonym Miss Britt. I was living in Parkersburg, Iowa, working in ad sales, and generally just going through the motions of being a wife and mother. I wasn’t thinking a lot about being happy, but I wouldn’t have said that I was unhappy. I thought that I should be perfectly satisfied with my life, and wondered what was wrong with me that I couldn’t just shut up and be as content as everyone around me.

I knew I wanted more, but I had no idea what “more” meant for me.

Over the next five years, I reinvented myself and my life over and over again in an attempt to find happiness. I moved to Orlando, Florida. I blew up my marriage and then put it back together again. I became a writer and started traveling more. I decided, in late 2010, to sell everything I owned and travel the country in an RV with my family. Then, we decided to finally make our dream of living a more urban lifestyle come true – so we moved to Pittsburgh, PA.

Somewhere along the way, I learned that being happy is both a process and a choice.
Writing about Being Happy

This site looks at how to be happier in big ways and small ones. You’ll find us talking about:

Happy Lifestyle – Happy isn’t a place you arrive at and live forever and ever; being happy is an ongoing process. That process includes finding your passion, making the choice to do what you love as often as possible, and doing something that scares the crap out of you every now and then. It also means taking the time to be grateful, I think.
Personal Growth – Personal growth (that stuff that happens inside our own heads) gets a bad rap because you can’t see it, but also because it’s hard. Changing the way you think is one of the most difficult skills to develop and also one of the most important steps towards being happy.
Travel – Being happy for me means traveling as often as possible. I learn the most about myself when I’m exploring the world around me. I love sharing stories about the places I go and hope they’ll encourage you to get out there and do what you love.
Relationships – We’re social creatures. For me, being happy means improving the way I relate to the people around me. For most of us, the people in our lives have the potential to be a big fat source of unhappiness or the reason we go to be smiling every night.
Inspirations – Because if they can do it, so can we.

I am not a self-help expert, a counselor, or a financial adviser. I don’t imagine myself to be more perfect or wiser than most people. I’m just a woman who loves the idea of people finding their passions and living really happy lives. And writing about that makes me happy. You can read more about my work as a freelance writer here.

If your not already reading In pursuit of Happiness, you should be!