I choose to be happy even in times of challenges or difficulty.

In the middle of a genuinely hard stretch, the small things go first. The walk. The record on Sunday morning. The phone call to the friend who makes you laugh.

They feel frivolous while something serious is happening. They are the opposite of frivolous. They are the ballast.

Choosing happiness in a difficult time does not mean feeling fine about the difficulty. It means refusing to let it take the crossword, the ten minutes in the garden, the one thing that still works.

Whatever you dropped when this got hard — pick one of them back up this week.