Trying to be more merry

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Tomorrow, May 13th, is the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, the feast that commemorates the apparition that brought me back to the Catholic Faith. One of the things I've been working on throughout the past couple of years, and keep falling short of, is being more grateful. I often end up lacking gratitude and the benefits of positive thinking that come with it. As I've mentioned elsewhere on here, on a snowy day this year back on January 18th, I made a majour breakthrough in my spiritual growth, and as an act of celebration and thanksgiving, I had this artwork of Our Lady commissioned:



Looking at this image, I should have feelings of deep joy and gratitude, because I longed for a day like that for so long and now I finally have it; but that doesn't always happen.

I think part of the reason why I lack gratitude for things even as big as this, (there are other causes, workaholism and the like) is that I may be too seriously-minded about things; I lack light-heartedness and being merry about things. I think a key reason why I have difficulty lightening-up, is because I tend view light-heartedness as sort of shallow and philistinistic, I like to be deep and really take-in the beauty, or even horror of things in a serious and realistic manner. But I realize that light-heartedness doesn't necessarily take away the depth of something; when I look at that picture above, I can appreciate both, that the snow is a type of Our Lady, getting its beauty by reflecting the white light of the sun, just as Our Lady gets Her beauty by reflecting the Divine Light of Her Son; and enjoying the snow as something fun that I loved to play in as a kid. I'm trying to realize that being merry about something doesn't necessarily take away from the beauty, depth, seriousness or even horror of something, but unfortunately, I still have to work on that a lot.

But getting to the end of all this rambling, does anyone have any advice or two-cents they can give? In the process of typing this, I have noticed that workaholism is another big issue that takes away from my ability to enjoy things and be merry, so if anyone has any advice on that I'd really appreciate it.

The Holy Ghost... The JOY of the Holy Ghost!
Laughter! A touch from GOD! A touch from JESUS!

Well said. interestingly enough, the other day I was asking for prayers on a Catholic forum site to find my future spouse, and I was given this prayer to the Holy Ghost to say:

Prayer to Find a Spouse

Holy Spirit, Our Comforter:
Please give me the wisdom to find my lifelong
companion. Please inspire me, that I may grow
in: respect for life and for all people; kindness;
sincerity; generosity; and forgiveness. And
help me recognize the person who is Your gift
to me. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Thats nice.