High on Happiness

Archive for May, 2010

As she walked past the open guest room door, the sound of his voice stopped her.  Despite its low volume, it was filled with such sincerity and enthusiasm that she wondered who had called him at this hour.

When she peeked in, she saw that he was speaking to no one at all.  He was simply standing there, his back to her, peering out the window.  “Good Morning, Grass!” he was saying.  “Good Morning, Dew.  Good Morning Trees and Birds.  Good Morning, Sky.”  Spontaneously, she laughed and he turned around, and laughed with her.

“What on earth are you doing?” she asked, still laughing.

“Good Morning, Caroline!  I’m greeting the day.”

“Do you always start your mornings like this?” she asked her guest.

“Why, yes,” he said, his eyes sparkling.  “I’m so glad for the gift of it, that it only seems right to take a few minutes to greet it.”

It’s All Good

Half an hour later, when they were sharing coffee at the kitchen table, Caroline asked Dave how long he had been starting his mornings with this ritual greeting of his and how it came to be.  “Actually,” he said, “I’ve been doing it since I was young man.  Over the years, it’s taken on such meaning for me that I don’t think I could possibly start the day without it.”

Dave had been through some harrowing times in his life.  He’d been in combat; he nearly died in an auto accident once.  Two of his businesses had failed before he finally met with success.  But even when he woke bleary eyed in the desert, covered with sweat and sand, he told Caroline, or in the hospital, to the smell of antiseptic and the low buzz of fluorescent lights, tethered to IVs, he took time to greet the morning.

It gave him a way, he said, to appreciate that he had one more day to be alive on this planet and to keep his mind open for the gifts the day would bring.

Caroline studied his face over the rim of her coffee cup as she took a sip.  “How could you feel that way when you were in a war?  Or wracked with pain in a hospital bed?” she asked quietly.

“It’s not the circumstances of your life that count,” he said.  “It’s how you look at them.  When I was a young man I read in a book somewhere, maybe one of Wayne Dyer’s, this remarkable statement: ‘Nothing bad ever happens to me.’  Everything is for your good, you see, always.  Even the fear and discouragement and pain.  I just adopted that as my working belief, and it’s seen me through some really difficult times.”

For a moment, Dave stared out the kitchen window at the sunny garden outside as if he were lost in memories.  Caroline heard a robin singing in the willow at the garden’s edge.  “Of course,” Dave said, “his face breaking into a smile, “it’s a lot easier to say ‘Good Morning’ to the world on a day as gorgeous as this one!  You really have a lovely place here, Caroline.”

Caroline smiled back and thanked him.  “But you know,” he said warmly, “every day truly is a gift.  It truly is.”

The whole purpose of dandelions, you know, is to help your best wishes come true.  You pluck one, hold it up to your face, make a wish and blow – really hard! And off fly the seeds on gossamer wings, to plant your dreams where they can flower and grow.  Who can resist it!

The same holds true, of course, for the first star you see in the nighttime sky, for shooting stars, and for birthday candles on a cake.

Wishes are big magic.  Even when you’ve long since abandoned childhood foolishness, given the chance to make a wish, you still close your eyes and conjure up the best one you can, fill it with hope and let it fly (just in case).  Don’t you?  C’mon.  I know you do.  If a genie came by with lamp . . . well, enough said.

Wishes have power.  They’re tokens of our unfulfilled desires, our dreams of what could be.  They’re openings to our secret self, pathways to our possibilities.  “If you can conceive it and believe it, you can achieve it,” said Napoleon Hill.  And it all starts with the conception, the wish, the dream.  Our wishes are pointers, whispers from ourselves about potential life directions.

What wishes are waiting inside you for recognition?  Do you pay attention when the words “I wish” sail out of your mouth?  Try noticing.  Collect your wishes; jot them down on the back page of your journal.  See what they tell you.  You just might be surprised.

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.For all moms everywhere, the true ones with strong wills and melting hearts, the ones who hold their babies close and let grown babies go, the ones who give up youth, leisure and sleep in the name of nurturing and guiding, the ones who trust instinct and some merciful god to whisper how, to show the way . . .

For their bravery and sacrifice, for their inventiveness and making do, for the wisdom they share, and the songs they sing, for all the long nights and sparkling mornings . . .

For their laughter and beauty, their playfulness and patience, their firm hands and gentle touch, for the traditions they pass on and the stories they tell, and most of all, for their light and endless unconditional love . . .

Our deepest gratitude, and golden flowers.

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If you have read my “about” page, you know that I began this blog by asking myself the question, “Why am I so happy now?”   Since then, I’ve been sharing all kinds of things about happiness—what it feels like, stories that illustrate it, some advice to point you in its direction, the views of life that being in a state of happiness have brought me.  And it’s been really heart-warming to hear from many of you that you find inspiration and uplift here.

But for quite some time now, I’ve wanted to do more.  I want to share with you the “how to” of happiness, to provide you with solid, practical things you can do to discover more happiness in your life.  So over the course of the last several months — when I’m not working or making photos or writing this blog (or taking care of the laundry or shoveling snow or attending to all the myriad tasks that keeping body and soul together require us to do) — I’ve been studying positive psychology and philosophies of the good life, and building a new blog.

Tonight, with great pleasure, and not a little trepidation, I’m happy to announce that its launch is near.  The pleasure comes from being able, at last, to provide you with concrete actions you can do to take your sense of well-being to new heights, to experience more of life’s beauty, wonder and joy in your own life.   (And just in case you’re wondering, High on Happiness won’t go away.  The new blog is just a its baby sister.)  There’s pleasure in a goal achieved.  And more than that, there’s joy in sharing happiness and in serving.

The trepidation comes from stage fright, of wondering whether I can meet the standards I’ve set for myself, wondering whether I’ll get all the last-minute things done, since always there is more to do, and wondering if I’ll ever get a chance to sleep again.

But part of living well entails trusting enough to make the leap when life brings you to a chasm. And part of it is being accountable to others.  So I’m leaping, and trusting, and inviting you to share in the pre-launch fun.

To get in on the very beginning, just go to Positive-Living-Now and sign up for the updates.  I’m putting the finishing touches on a survey you can take to help me tailor-make the site for you.  And I have a thank-you present I’ll send you, too, that needs just a tad more attention.  So get your name on my list and watch your email.  The orchestra is warming up in the pit, the house lights are beginning to dim, and before the month is out, the curtain will rise.

I’d love to know that you’re in the front row when it does.

As I walked along the creek’s bank this afternoon, I thought about all the fishermen who had stood there at the start of trout season last month, braving a cold rainy day, just for the fun of it.

The first day of trout season is a big deal in these parts.  The local parks overflow with tents and the fragrance of grilled foods, and even if they have to bundle up in winter coats, families turn out in droves just to launch the season.

Now that the hubbub has died, fishing turns into a much more peaceful pleasure, a chance to get away into the solace of nature, to stand in hip boots in the stream, watching the water flow by, thinking your thoughts, relaxing.

We need that.   We need the pastimes and easy pleasures that let us unwind and get into a leisurely flow.  We need the spaces they provide for our tensions to untangle, for the dreamy free flow of thoughts, away from our routines and obligations.  They’re like mini-vacations for the mind and spirit, refreshing and restoring us and making us whole.

I’m not talking about passive relaxation where you zone out in front of the TV.  I’m talking about engaging in an activity that you genuinely enjoy, just for its own sake.  The key word is “engaging.”   I’m talking about easy pleasures and fun: A sport, a hobby, the pursuit of an interest.

If you don’t have one, get one.  Think about the kinds of things you enjoyed doing when you were a kid, the things you fantasize about doing when you retire.  Browse through the magazine section at a local bookstore and see what grabs your attention.

If you know exactly what your favorite pastime or pleasure is, make time for it.  Build hours for it into your week and keep these hours as a sacred trust.  You owe it to yourself.  It will make you a richer, happier, healthier you.

I grew up on the shores of Michigan’s Saginaw Bay, a vast body of fresh water that stretched from my bare feet all the way to the horizon.  And it was the bay, I believe, that taught me most of what I know about life.

I watched its moods come and go, from its grand, angry storms, whipping the waves into white caps six feet high, to the reverent mornings when the rose and gold of sunrise colored its placid waters.  Its colors changed hourly and from season to season.  I never tired of it.

On summer nights, I would lie in bed and listen through my open window to the waves lapping on the shore as I drifted off to sleep.  Their ceaselessness was a wonder to me, and a comfort.  Even on the stillest nights, when not a single leaf moved on the trees, the waves were always there: washing up, rolling back, washing up, rolling back, moved by some nameless force within the bay’s depths.

During my teenage years, as I was learning to cope with the drama of adolescent mood swings, I would walk along the shore until I got lost in the bay’s rhythm and became one with it somehow.  Then, little of me remained.  Not my excitement, or my sorrow, or my loneliness or longing.  My moods were nothing more than weather, changing with the circumstantial winds.

Overhead, cottonwood leaves rustled in the breeze and gulls sailed high beyond the clouds until they, like me, almost disappeared.  I smelled the seaweed and the sand and the fragrance of the water itself.  I laughed at the comical sandpipers playing tag with the lapping waves. I felt the sun on my face, and the breeze.  And inside, I felt the rhythms of my pulse and of my breathing, moved by some silent force within my depths.  And I felt its peace and endlessness washing through me, and knew it would ceaselessly flow forever, and that its name was Joy.

I’ve been watching the ferns grow.  When they first burst up from the earth, they look like tiny fern embryos, or little living springs of some kind, all curled up in tight little spirals atop their fuzzy stems.  But day after day, they relax more and more into the gentle spring air, their stems straightening as they grow, their leaves opening to the light.  Soon they’re great, proud fans of green, marching up the hill.

I marveled today at the sweet easiness of their unfolding, the effortlessness of their growth.  They just surrender to the life force and keep reaching for the light.

You have to look hard to find one that’s bent out of shape.  It’s not that they don’t have their irritations or causes for concern.  Bugs crawl up their spines and munch on their leaves, after all.  Pine cones bomb them from above.  And at any moment, a deer could run from the woods and crush them beneath its mighty hooves.

It’s just that they don’t spend their beautiful moments anticipating what troubles could befall them.  And so they have no defensive anger, no fear.  They have better things to do.  They can dance with the wind, for instance.  (That’s actually one of their favorite pastimes.)  Or listen to the singing of tree leaves and birds, or visit with the happy yellow flowers that pop up in their midst.

Their attention just stays focused on the ever-changing scene before them.  It proves their faith, supplies their needs, and brings them unending delight.  And so with a sweet easiness, they surrender to its fullness.  And the life force, finding no resistance, flows through them and they prosper and grow.

“Every now and then,” I tell my friends, “a day comes along that makes all the rest of them worth it.”

It’s not that I’m unaware of the world’s crises.  Despite the general counsel of happiness proponents to stop paying attention to the news, I read it daily, and in depth a couple of times a week.  No doubt about it, Planet Earth is one heck of a dramatic place.

But today whipped cream clouds floated in a deep blue sky, and the sun gently warmed the perfumed breeze.  And every time I looked up from my work, I was spellbound by the beauty before me.  The most ordinary objects—a heap of paper clips, a role of tape—looked like works of art.

Across the parking lot, roofers worked, their nail guns tapping rhythms that floated through my open office window.   On the adjacent closed side street, a trio of teenage boys practiced their skateboarding, with wheels clattering, and cheers and hoots rising when their leaps and whirls met with success.  Dogs barked.  Birds twittered and sang.  Cars and buses purred and rumbled by.

My work was just challenging enough to keep me in a state of flow.  And when coworkers stopped by, I was astonished at how beautiful each one was.  They looked like they were especially chosen by central casting to play their unique roles.  Their costumes and gestures were perfect, and they perfectly delivered their lines, with perfect expressions that made me laugh or nearly cry and love them, and each one left with a smile.

On my way home, I stopped by the shimmering lake and found trillium in the woods and felt as if I were walking in a paradise.

I don’t know how it happens, or why.  But every now and then, I fall into these trances of beauty and joy, where, despite its woes, and even including them, life unfolds with uncommon grace.  I’d like to think it’s the result of practicing happiness, of learning to recognize life’s beauty and goodness and truth.  And perhaps it is.  Perhaps it all stores up until, once in awhile, a big translucent bubble of it enfolds an entire day.

Whatever its source, I’ll take it.  Now all that’s left to wish for is that somehow I can pass a big slice of it along to you.

I talked with a friend of mine tonight who’s on the edge of the massive Tennessee flood.  She’s escaped the worst of it, but she told me tales about the widespread devastation in the region.

Another friend told me her dear aunt, who had who kept her informed of all the goings-on in the family, had passed away three weeks ago.  And no one had thought to tell her.

Times of sorrow, trial, disappointment and loss come to us all.  They ride the globe in dark bands, touching individuals, nations, regions.

They keep us from being too full of ourselves.  They remind us not to take for granted the good times, to be genuinely appreciative of the blessings we’re privileged to enjoy.  They engender our compassion and stir us to reach out with thoughts and acts of loving kindness.

Loving kindness is a balm that flows from the open heart of the giver and soothes the recipient, uniting them in their shared humanity.  It bridges all the space created by the artificial boundaries of status, gender, age, race . . . all the superficial distinctions we create to delude ourselves into thinking that we’re somehow superior to our neighbor.

It transcends other artificial distinctions, too; it’s heedless of time or space.  Thoughts of loving kindness instantly touch others’ hearts, whether we’re able to communicate them on the material plane or not.  That’s the magic of them, the seeming miracle.

Focus your attention on your heart and feel it radiating waves of kindness outward—enveloping you yourself in compassion, for you require it too, and then flowing to those near you, your circle of family, and friends.  Imagine it reaching out to your broader social circle, and enveloping strangers and even those with whom you currently feel at odds.  Feel it spreading out across your nation, your continent, your hemisphere and then circling the globe.  This is the practice of loving kindness meditation.  And while it may sound like woo-woo to some, its effects are measurable and profound.

Help yourself to a few quiet moments of it today.  Practice it daily and your world will change.  I promise.

I was rearranging a bookshelf today and happened across a little volume of poems by e.e. cummings.  I got lost in its pages for awhile, my spirit soaring at the beauty of some of his thoughts, and I came across one poem that’s among my very favorites.

I’ll share it with in a minute.  But first I should tell you that I absolutely love springtime, and that May is my favorite month of them all.  When I was growing up, every May 1st I would go to the nearby woods and pick a huge bouquet of wildflowers for my mother.  “May” was my mom’s middle name, and more than that, our birthdays both fell in May.

In the part of the country where I live, it’s the time when the world is suddenly green again, and decked with flowers.  You can go outside without boots and mittens and a heavy coat.  It’s a time of freedom.  The air is fresh and filled with the chorus of the returning songbirds, everything is exuberantly bursting with new life and gladness.

I love cummings’ poem because it captures that exuberance so completely.  But more than that, it dives to the heart of celebration  in praise of the Infinite Source of it all.  He calls that Source “God,” and so do I.  But think of whatever you personally believe to be the power within and beneath it all, and enjoy this beautiful poem:

I thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Wishing you a beautiful May, my friends.