High on Happiness

Archive for October, 2009

We were talking last week, some friends and I, about the tendency in today’s world for people to bombard themselves continuously with sound.  It rumbles from cars and fills the air in every shop and market.  It’s in our elevators, waiting rooms, and offices.  We stuff our ears with buds of it when we’re walking in the park or out for a morning run.

The instant we arrive home, it’s on with the stereo, the radio, the TV.  Their sounds play into the night and wake us in the morning.  “It’s audio wallpaper,” a coworker once told me when he brought in a tiny desktop TV; “I can’t think without it.”

An ingrained habit, it’s almost like an addiction, this craving for continuous sound.  For the most part, people aren’t listening for pleasure; they may not be paying attention to the music or talk at all. But deprive them of it, and it puts them on edge.  They don’t know what to do without the stimulation and distraction it provides.

If you’re someone whose world is continuously filled with man-made sound, I’d like to make a suggestion.  As a happiness experiment, try weaning yourself from it so you can discover the pleasure and calm of ambient and natural sounds.  Learn to listen to the background music that life itself provides—the sounds of the city, of your workplace, the particular music of your home.  Listen to the wind, to the tone of peoples’ voices, to the laughter and cries of children, to the songs of the birds, the barking of dogs.

Then move deeper and explore the sound of yourself—the rushing of your thoughtstream, the movement of air in and out of your nostrils, your footfalls as you walk, the sounds you make when you eat, the tone of your own voice in all its moods and modes of expression.

Learning truly to listen quiets us; it opens our attention to new layers of being.  When we listen to the sounds of the world, we get to know it in a whole new way.  When we learn to listen to others, it opens our heart to them, broadening and strengthening our connections with them, deepening our appreciation for them, and our affection.  When we truly listen to ourselves, we uncover new dimensions of self-knowledge; we discover thoughts and emotions that had gone unnoticed before and gain the opportunity to consciously respond to them.

Beneath the sounds, upholding them all, lies a fathomless stillness, the layer of pure being and peace found through meditation.  Learning to listen is a kind of waking meditation that helps you realize that it’s there, in all its shimmering beauty.  You begin to sense its presence between the syllables of words, beneath machinery’s hum, supporting the whispering breeze.  You feel it upholding the beating of your heart, the breathing of your lungs.  And when you listen quietly and fully enough, its peace will seep into your awareness, and you’ll discover its nature is love.

Old Hank was a cowboy philosopher back in the gold rush days, known far and wide for his smile and twinkling eyes.  He never struck it rich, and in his years he had seen some hard times.  Enough of them, in fact, to have left a lesser man bitter and mean.

But Hank was no lesser man.  He was strong and kind, capable and self-possessed in an easy-going, unassuming kind of way.

Men tipped their hats to him when he came into town, and offered to buy him breakfast just to enjoy his company.

Mostly they wanted to know how he kept his happy disposition after all the trials and tribulations he’d been through in his life.  And this is the tale he told them:

“No point in being miserable.  When you wallow in your troubles, they got you lassoed.  You don’t get out of the desert by thinkin’ about how hot and thirsty you are.  You picture the creek and green grass in the mountains up ahead.  When you’re stuck in a  blizzard, you focus on the fire and biscuits you’ll have when you get home.  When you finally get there and have that fire going and those biscuits baking, that’s the time to wallow.”

“It’s kind of like panning for gold,” Hank would tell them.  “You pay no attention to the rubble; you just keep on looking for that gleam.  Then – when you find a nugget – that’s what you tuck it in your pouch and take home.”

“What do you say?” our mothers prompted us whenever we received a favor.

“Thank you,” we mumbled, embarrassed to be reminded yet again.

If the lessons took, the phrase rolls automatically from our tongues once we reach a certain age.  We say it without a thought.  But if you’re seeking to build greater happiness in your life, few tools will help you as much as learning to say  “thank you” with mindfulness, to say it from your heart.

“Thank you” is much more than a polite saying for greasing the wheels of human interaction.  It’s a genuinely magical phrase that, rightly applied, has the power to lift and heal and bring new light to nearly any situation in which we might find ourselves.

One of the best ways to experience its power is to use it as a kind of mantra as you go through your day.  Speak it silently as often as you can, to everyone and everything you notice.  And speak it out loud to those who bring you pleasure and give meaning to your life.

Repeat it silently to all that’s lovely and whole, to everyone and everything that sparks gladness in your heart.  Let it lace your thoughts as you go about all your ordinary activities.  Say it to your toothbrush in the morning and to the mirror and the face you see there.  Say it to your refrigerator and to the light switch and the faucet.  Say it to your car or bus, to your legs, to elevators and doorknobs.

Then kick its magic up a notch.  Practice silently saying “thank you” to everyone and everything that disturbs you and watch what happens inside yourself as you do.  Watch it reveal hidden judgments and unconscious values.  Watch as it refocuses your viewpoint and shows you new angles from which to view things.  Say it to tasks you normally shrink from.  Say it to traffic and garbage.  Practice it when someone is irritating you, or boring you, or offending you and watch how it impacts your emotions, your perspective, and even the other person.

Try adopting this happiness practice for a month—even if it sounds silly to you.  Keep a journal of your experiences.  I don’t call it magical for nothing.  Try it.  I dare you.  And I thank you for at least considering giving it a whirl.

I heard a guy on the radio talking about why he loved dogs.  “No matter what’s going on,” he says, “it’s always their favorite thing.  You ask ‘em, ‘Want to go for a walk?’ and they get so excited you can hear their doggy brains saying, ‘Oh boy!  My favorite thing!’  Want to take a nap?  ‘Oh boy!  My favorite thing!’  Want a bone? “Oh boy! My favorite thing!”  Want to go chase skunks?  ‘Oh boy!  My favorite thing!’”

Dogs know the key.  It’s loving whatever comes down the pike, whatever the moment brings.  Well, okay, not everything.  Dogs have their times of grief and pain just like we humans do.  But on your ordinary run-of-the-mill day, dogs are minute-by-minute on it. Walk, sleep, eat, dig, jump, scratch, work or play, a dog does it with every molecule of his being.

Dogs don’t get tied up in indecision.  They don’t worry about what happened yesterday or what might happen tomorrow.   And they’re not big on comparing themselves to the status of the dog next door.  They don’t fret about whether they’re as strong or as smart or who has the bigger dog house or the best-groomed hair.

That pretty much frees them to exercise their natural enthusiasm, to latch on to the sweet spot in every passing moment and play it for all its worth.  For dogs, it’s all about right now, and loving it.  It’s about basking in it, devouring it, lolling in it, engaging with it, full-tilt all the way.

Sometimes I hear people say that the world is going to the dogs.  I wish it would—at least long enough to see all the things they have to teach us.  It just might turn out to be a better place.

Once happiness gets cookin’, it’s hard to contain.  It wriggles and it jiggles ‘til it sets itself free.

It somersaults down your spine, and roller skates off your tongue, and plays tic-tac-toe with your eyeballs.

It takes your years and rolls ‘em up in a ball and tosses them so far away you forget you ever had them.

Before you know it, you’re tossing grins at the doorman and the secretary, and saying “Looking Good!” to perfect strangers on the street.

It gets into your ankles and makes you want to dance.  It bubbles up into your throat and makes you sing right out loud, even if it’s raining.

It oozes from your mouth in compliments, jokes and laughter.  Suddenly you find yourself craving bright colors and wanting to strew them around.

It puffs up your lungs and lets you know you’re a winner and a star, and so is everybody else, even when they don’t know it.

And your head reels in giddiness at the fabulous amusement park of life, and you love it and want it never to end and know, somehow, that it doesn’t, even though we pretend.

I stopped at the lake this afternoon to see how autumn’s grand painting was coming along.  It’s a Great Work she’s producing, her Magnum Opus of the year.  It doesn’t happen all at once.

Beginning with a sea of green, she paints a leaf, the tip of a branch, a tree, its neighbors, a forest.  From her rich and varied palette, she dabs a bit of crimson, of burgundy, a touch of yellow, a sweep of a gold, a swath of scarlet, a ribbon of rust. And then, when you look again, the whole world is ablaze with her glorious creation.

No, it doesn’t happen over night.  Autumn’s transition is one of gradual progress, performed with unrelenting passion.  And when you think about it, that’s the way all masterworks come to be.  A note at a time, one stitch, one step, one stroke of a brush, one word.

If you’re seeking to create a masterpiece of joy, your palette is every bit as rich and varied as autumn’s.  It’s composed of savoring and awe, of humor and fun, of sharing good new and good times.  You transition to it, like autumn, by making gradual progress with unrelenting passion.  You paint your world with smiles, with gratitude and appreciation.  You dapple it with laughter and with deep strokes of forgiveness.  You spice it with humor and play.

The transition to a life of flourishing joy doesn’t happen over night.  You transform a section of it here with serenity, a branch over there with hope and pride.  You drape bands of integrity and optimism as you go, and use your broadest brush to color your world with love.

And if, like autumn, you keep going through nights of frost and days of rain, one day, when you look again, you will discover the transition is complete, and your whole world is ablaze with the gladness of your creation.

When it comes to making choices,
And your mind is torn apart,
Listen to your feelings;
Heed the wisdom of your heart.

Beyond the realm of thinking,
With a logic all its own,
Where all your needs and wishes,
Are truly seen and known,

Your inner heart is speaking
To lead you toward the place
That will bring you joy and learning,
With surety and with grace.

It speaks through intuition,
Through a tugging in your chest.
If you’re honest you will hear it.
If you follow, you’ll be blessed.

Its guidance may not make much sense,
And contradict your mind.
But its wisdom is superior
And its judgments true and fine.

So when you have to choose
Between the yellow and the blue,
Listen to your heart.
It knows what’s best for you.

I hung “Do Not Distrub” signs all around myself this weekend, telling folks I wanted no company, no phone calls.  I had things I wanted to do that required some solitude.  I planned to plan.

Every month I set out for myself one objective toward which I’ll make every effort to achieve fabulous progress.  But now and then I like to take stock and zoom out a ways to look at the bigger picture.  Where would I like my life to be a year from now?  What would I have to do to get there?

Once I have a general idea of where I would like to find myself, I start writing down all the steps I can envision that I would have to take to get from here to there.  What would I have to do first?  And then what?  And how many of them can I do in, say, the next three months?  From there, I draw my monthly objectives and jump in and start moving forward.

I think of my planning as building a bridge between the present and the future-as-I’d-like-it-to-be.  It provides a walkway for me across the stream of time, a path for my thoughts and intentions to follow to move me toward my dream.

Oh sure, it will morph as I go; the nearer I get to my destination, the clearer my picture of it becomes.  But the bridge of plans will get me close enough to see what shifts in direction I want to make when I reach its end.

Mike Dooley says the only thing that stands between you and your dream are the thoughts that you think between now and then.  Guide those thoughts according to your plan and sooner or later you’ll find yourself living a version of the dream that turned out even better than you had initially imagined.  It makes for happy, confident, self-directed living.

At its end, the work week folded itself into a quiet little package of gray.  Rain had washed all but the strongest color from the scene and dulled even  that.  As I walked to my car beneath the low blanket of cloud cover, the air tasted cool and fresh, and suddenly I felt wonderfully alive.

I noticed the raindrops clinging to the cherries on the tree at the parking lot’s edge, the reflection of the fence posts in the puddles.   I heard the wet swoosh of passing cars playing against the dripping of the rain from the leaves and the splash of my footsteps on the sidewalk.

Just as I reached my car, I heard a tiny little chirp and looking up, saw a gathering of small birds perched on the electric lines overhead like notes on page of music.  The sight seemed so touching to me, these vulnerable creatures, convening to sing in the rain.  I felt as if they were delivering a message to me that I had been waiting to hear.

I drove home in a bubble of peace, patient with the slow traffic, enjoying the way the rhythm of my car’s windshield wipers kept time with radio’s music.  I got caught up in my after-work activities when I got home—sorting mail, changing clothes, making supper.

Then, as I sat processing the day’s photos, my cat purring on my lap, there were the birds again.  And as I looked at the picture of them, their message floated into my mind:  “Life is a song; sing it.”  I smiled in recognition and looked up the entire quote.  It’s from Sai Baba, an Indian guru and yogi who lived at the beginning of the last century.  It was my gift today from the birds, and I’m pleased to share its wisdom now with you:

“Life is a song – sing it.  Life is a game; play it.  Life is a challenge; meet it.  Life is a dream; realize it.  Life is a sacrifice; offer it.  Life is love; enjoy it.”

As if to welcome October, the morning sky put on a show, singing of possibility and promise, its rising light chasing away the clouds like waking chases away dreams.

There’s a kind of majesty to a sunrise, a silent power, as the darkness surrenders to its light.  It stirs something in us, a nameless inner knowing that we’re part of something larger than ourselves, that we fit somehow into time’s endless procession.  Regardless of the challenges and demands we may think the unfolding day holds, a sunrise encourages us and emboldens us somehow.

It’s the archetypical symbol of all new beginnings and births -  new ventures, new relationships, new opportunities.  It offers us the chance to start over, to choose a new course, to make new decisions, to reach higher, to realize more of our potential, to exercise more of our strengths.  It’s the symbol of renewal, the promise of the return of light after the season of night.  It speaks to our capacity for resilience, for triumphing over our own inner darkness, for making fresh starts.

No wonder that, universally, it’s a time of worship, meditation or prayer.  It reconnects us with our spirit, our own internal spark of the Divine Light.  And so it fills us with joy.

May the happiness of new beginnings be yours with every rising of the sun.