Then he puts on his sweater when I put coffee in…I mean that’s happiness right there.

Most mornings, I start my day by pulling out a Mr. Roger’s mug that was given to me by a friend. It delights me more than it should that when I pour the coffee in, he changes from a suit and tie into a sweater.

(I also have a Bob Ross mug that gives me happy little clouds when I pour in coffee...)

The mug is covered with famous Mr. Rogers’ sayings:

I like you just the way you are.

Often when you think you’re at the end of something you’re at the beginning of something else.

Or, perhaps my all-time favorite:

You can never go down the drain.

I also have a Mr. Roger's t-shirt that gives three rules of adulthood:
1. Be kind.
2. Be kind.
3. Be kind.

My original slogan for Kim Lloyd Fitness was “Get off your tail” a clever enough take on using a dog for my logo. But while the slogan was witty, it never really rang true for me. Despite years of coaching, I've never been big on giving orders, and certainly never direct orders.

Then one day, as I was leaving my former therapist’s office, I saw a small green sticker on the bumper of her car that read simply, Be Kind.

And immediately, I realized that was the message I wanted to be sharing. That was the message that was in my heart. That if I could be known for one thing and only one thing, it would be doing everything I could to spread a message of kindness.

Sure I want people to get up and start moving so that they can feel better and move better. And I absolutely want people to be strong, both physically and mentally. But I’m not much into telling people what to do. It’s just not my style.

I could not have predicted when I chose that slogan in 2015, just how important that message of kindness would become on a national level.

The need for kindness is more crucial now than ever before.

Every morning, I swipe left on my iPhone and read the day's news. Sure bad things happen. Bad things, unfortunately, will always happen. And it will always be a measure of our humanity as to how we respond to those bad things.

I never imagined in my adult life that I would be witness to the name-calling and hate-filled language from so many leaders in our country. I don't think any of us could imagine. It makes me outrageously angry.

And that's the problem.

It challenges my own ability to be kind and compassionate.

I believe in a world of civil discourse. I believe in a world of opposing views. I believe that there is no one right way to do anything. I believe that we all have a right to practice the faith that is in our heart, and to live the beliefs that match that faith.

But I can't, for the life of me, believe in the vitriol, the name-calling, the bullying, and the hate that I'm seeing every day, in so many ways, from so many people. It breaks my heart to think of the language that my 9 year old niece and 6 year old nephew would hear just by being in the room when the nightly news is on.

From people who are elected leaders.

I chose the tag line of kindness because it aligns with my values (my pillars of happiness, of which I owe you two more next week). The thing is, whether it's naive or not, I believe that kindness is in everyone's values - or at least that kindness is somewhere in their hearts, if maybe a little lost.

I just think, as a country, we've forgotten about kindness. Myself included.

So today I'll try to remind myself to do what I can. No, holding doors for someone else, or buying a stranger's coffee will not immediately turn the rhetoric in this country. But as I dive into a new book called "Atomic Habits" I'm reminded of the definition of atomic:

1. an extremely small amount of a thing; the single irreducible until of a larger system.
2. the source of immense energy or power.

“Ever since happiness heard your name, it’s been running down the street trying to find you”

— Hafiz, Perisian Poet

I read this quote, then glanced at the book on the corner of my desk. 

"10% Happier", by Dan Harris. 

I looked at my bookshelf.

“The Happiness Project,” by Gretchen Ruben.

“The Art of Happiness,” by the Dalai Lama - just to name a few. 

The next book I'm reading is on Geno Auriemma, the head coach of UConn women's basketball. Thanks Anne. :-)

I looked from the books back to the quote on my computer monitor.

Has happiness been chasing me? 

Hardly. 

Sadness often grips me around my ankles, tugging me towards darkness, baiting me into the shadows and shackling me under the cobwebs and stairs. 

It has sometimes felt like my full-time job to pull out of those shackles and go looking for happiness.

The first time anyone ever asked me whether or not I was happy, I was working as a newspaper reporter for a weekly paper in Western Pennsylvania, making 15K a year and considering graduate school options. 

No, I told her. I wasn’t really happy.

At the time, I was completely floundering in my journey, certain that happiness, if it were to be found for me, was on the other side of a Master’s Degree in creative writing. I didn’t know much, but I was sure of that.    

“Have you ever been happy?” she asked.

I chewed on the question for a bit. I wasn’t sure. 

There were moments I’d enjoyed - playing sports, spending time with family and friends. I’d certainly had fun and laughter at times in my life. 

But happy? Me? 

I’ve always thought of happiness as a sacred place of arrival - the Mount Everest of joy - where we arrive one day panting, breathless, savoring the view and reflecting on our effort to get there.  

Happiness is a place we are trying to get to, rather than a place we already are. 

We’re sure that it’s hidden in the new job, the new relationship, or at our goal weight of 145 pounds. Happiness and 145 pounds go hand in hand, right?

But what if it’s not like that?

What if we really don’t need to look for it? Chase it? Try to win it?

What if we really just need to be open to it?  

What if happiness is in the warm sun, shining on my head as I write this. In Rooney’s contented breathing as he lays on my legs and I drink my coffee. Watching my niece and nephew do push-ups for me while we FaceTime. 

In Sunday morning conversations and coffee with my parents. 

And a gym full of people gathered to watch the original Wonder Woman with me. 

Happiness is in so many places and people and moments. 

Happiness has been chasing us all along. 

We’re not always easy to catch. Because we’re too busy running ahead when really, we just need to stop long enough to let it catch us. 

Today, right now, in this moment - stop. 

Practice that sacred pause. 

And let happiness catch you. 

Each week I send out a newsletter with tips and tricks for working out. Click here to sign up. I won't spam you. I'm not like that. Besides, spam is gross. 

I love the movie "Bridget Jones Diary." Any movie that begins with a women listening to sad FM radio and lip-syncing Eric Carmen’s All by Myself into a hair brush has my vote. I used to watch it on VHS. 

The opening scene though...

There's a generation of you out there that will never know the phrase "please be kind and rewind." Sad.

Without giving too much away, Bridget is a single thirty-something on a mission to find romance and lose weight. (I have a feeling that same plot will be playing in movies 1,000 years from now.) Each diary entry begins with the date, her current weight, and the status of her love life. I won’t spoil the romance part of it, but she does achieve her weight loss in the movie, and when she hits that goal weight, drum roll please........

Nothing happens. In fact, her family and friends are concerned.

Are you ill? Is something wrong with you? You don’t look good.

The take home point, of course, is that her friends and family love her just as she is. 

We all have something we obsess over; something that floats off in the distance; the one shining beacon that we feel, if we could just get there, would make everything right again. Getting our Ph.D. Writing a book. Finding a relationship. Weighing 135.8 pounds. 

What about the journey? 

For me, that shining beacon in the distance was a job, or rather, career. I should say, that beacon for me was finding THE job or THE career. I practically lived in the career office at my college. Thankfully, my best friend's mom worked there and got used to seeing me around. I took every career test under the sun and still didn't know what I was going to do. 

In fact, I celebrated my graduation from Gannon University walking by myself down State Street in Erie, Pennsylvania in my cap and gown and literally panicking. "Oh my God," I thought. "What now?"

I had little time to celebrate graduating Cum Laude while playing lacrosse and living in a convent. I was, what Daniel Gilbert calls in his book "Stumbling on Happiness," nexting.

I was nexting. What next? 

And I went right on nexting through my 20's and into my 30's with my career obsession. I can’t begin to tell you how much shame I carried (and sometimes still do) surrounding my employment situation.* 

I was often too busy moping about my lack of a career to fully appreciate the depth of my experience as a person. I ignored the fact that I’d performed chest compressions on a woman who was coding when I worked at a hospital. That my face was inches from her husband’s face as he held her hand and begged her not to leave him and I literally put the entire force of my life into her heart that helped, in that moment, keep her alive. 

Then, because it was part of my job as a nurse transporter, I took her body to the hospital morgue later that night. That experience, while awful and traumatic, at my ripe old age of 23, was life-changing.  

But I ignored that.  

At 24 years old I showed up to a press conference less than 60 miles from the crash of Flight 93 on September 11th, 2001. I was a young, very green reporter and it was my job, at the age of 24, to report the news on a day when nothing made any sense. 

But I ignored that. 

I took this shot the year I was the AA photographer for theAltoona Curve. And in the midst of yet another terrible depression that also involved my lack of success at a career. 

I photographed Andrew McCutchen when he made his AA debut for the Altoona Curve. I was in the dugout and walked up the stairs in front of him so I could grab his picture coming out of the dugout for the debut. For those of you who follow baseball, McCutchen is a perennial All-Star and the 2013 National League MVP. 

But I ignored that. 

The list could go on. 

And I was ashamed and embarrassed every step of the way. I was so focused on what I WASN'T doing and achieving that I dismissed my life experiences as having no value. I was hyper focused on a career. And because I lived the hyper-focus for so long, and still battle it every day, I see the hyper-focus in so many people.

I appreciate having a goal and writing it down. Part of my struggle with a career is that I didn't have a goal. I struggled for focus. So I think it's awesome to have a goal.

But how many moments are you nexting away in the process? Will you be a different person when you lose those 10 pounds? Will you be a better person? No. Will you feel better? Probably. But are you giving away moments now?

When I coached softball and we were losing by a lot, my phrase to them was "don't give away an at bat." College doesn't last forever. Your career doesn't last forever.

You're life doesn't last forever. Don't give away this moment by assuming that happiness will happen in the next moment. Or the next or the next or the next. 

I've given away a lot of moments in my life waiting for my real life to begin. But I hope with time and practice, that I can enjoy the present moment for whatever it brings. And that is my hope for you as well. 

*I’m happy with where I am now; but anytime someone asks for a resume, I cringe. There’s literally not enough room to put my experience on one page. I had to create a communications based resume, a coaching based resume, a photography based resume…etc.