High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘Carefree’

Because the daylily leaves loved rain, this year they were in their glory.  They woke at first light every morning just to watch the sparkling droplets glide down from the sky.  Although they were always buoyant and filled with cheer, the rhythm of each rain’s dance changed from day to day, from hour to hour.

For awhile, the leaves would simply listen to the lively tappings, getting a sense of the rain’s bounce and play.  Then, once they were attuned to the beat, they would rise up, pliant and limber, and let the drops cascade down their lengths to the ground and roots below.

On the mornings after an especially hard rain, the leaves were sodden and heavy when they woke.  They would find themselves piled in a tangled heap, bent with the weight of the rain.

But they were agile and flexible and took delight in restoring themselves to their full height once again.  Resilience, after all, was a part of their nature, a key to their spirit and strength.

They knew that to yield to the rain’s heaviest downpours was often far wiser than to resist them.  And so they woke untroubled and carefree even after the most daunting nights.

In the end, they would be crowned with glorious blossoms for their efforts, all springy and floating in the summer sun.  But for now, in the rain, their dance was simply for the joy of it, and for the delight they took in its effervescent light.

“Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” ~Henry James

Oh, the leisure of it!  And the loveliness!  At long last, summer is here.

“Summer is the time,” said Ada Huxtable, “when one sheds one’s tensions with one’s clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit.  A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all’s right with the world.”

If I could wish a wish for you, it would be that you do indeed become absolutely intoxicated with the belief that all is right with world—and never recover from the notion.

Happy Summer, my friends.  May it live forever in your hearts.

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A clear blue sky spread itself from horizon to horizon from sunrise until dusk.  Suddenly one of spring’s first harbingers appears: puddles!  Still, deep heaps of snow remain, smoothing the shapes of things into graceful, sweeping curves that shimmer in the bright sun’s light.

Today the sight of the gentle rounds of the melting drifts brought to mind a quote on cheerfulness by writer Washington Irving.  “An inexhaustible good nature,” he said, “is one of the most precious gifts of heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather.”

He might as easily have said, “like drifts of snow over the rocky landscapes of thought.” The point is the same.  A disposition grounded in the peace of genuine happiness allows us to keep our minds smooth and untroubled regardless of outer events.

It takes practice to maintain that kind of mental smoothness.  Life’s seas still bring storms, and the ground beneath the snow’s gentle blanket is sometimes treacherous indeed.  Happiness doesn’t guarantee a life free from challenges.  But it does allow you to meet those challenges with optimism, confidence, resilience and faith.  A positive disposition keeps you from the extremes of fear and hopelessness; it empowers you by allowing you to see a broader array of options and by putting you in charge of yourself and your choices so you don’t fall prey to thinking of yourself as life’s victim.

Being born with a big helping of happy genes is indeed one of the most precious gifts of heaven.  And the twin gift is that all of us can learn to cultivate more joy, whether we were born into it or not.  I think that’s the sparkle on the snow.  We can learn.