She was decorating her little pony made out of playdoh and wanted to make little stars to adorn it. The star cutter shape we had was much too big, so we tried cutting out little stars out of the doh- but it was not working and we were left with little lumps of doh that did not resemble a star. As I looked closer, I noticed the very thing we had been trying to attain was right in front of us the whole time. Little silver glitter stars were speckled throughout the doh. All we had to do was look closely and appreciate what was right in front of us all along.

We do this in our own lives. Search and search for happiness, for glitter, for joy, for stars. We buy things thinking they will make us happy, we look to the future- thinking we will be happier only when. When we have more money, when our kids are out of diapers, when we get that promotion, when less toys will be strewn all over, when we get that newer, bigger house. We will have joy when we are less stressed out, when we have more time. Or when our spouse changes, when we lose those extra pounds, when we make more friends, when our kids behave better. And on and on and on.

But all along- the happiness, the glitter, the joy, the stars are right there in front of us. We just have to take the time to look. To search for the glitter in the mess. To appreciate what is right in front of us instead of trying to constantly make our own happiness. We need to be happy with what we have in the now because there will always be lumps of doh in our lives. There will always be a mess.

And even though our life may sometimes seem like a big pile of mis-shaped doh- look for the glitter in the midst – because it’s there.