High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘Happiness’

They’re making us a sunshine sandwich this weekend: one slice of radiant sun, piled high with fresh greens and whipped clouds, between two freshly baked days of rain.

It’s a yummy treat, common in this part of the country as spring comes to a close.

We’re especially fond of the filling.  It tastes like summer, warm and spicy on our tongues.  And we’re careful not to let a morsel of it go to waste.  We inhale the bright fragrance of it.  We let its flavor roll around in our mouths for awhile.  We savor it long after the last bit of it is gone.

It’s kind of like the way you meet a slice of happiness, tucked between slabs of ordinary days and made all the brighter by its contrast with them.  You just surrender to it and let the taste of it flow through your whole being, filling you with its gladness and joy.  And when the last bit of it fades into ordinary again, you carry the feeling of it with you and it satisfies your mind and nourishes your soul.

I used to work in an office with a man who brightened the whole place every time he walked in the door.  When anybody asked, “Jim, how are you today?”  He would reply with a big, booming, “Beautiful!”  And no matter what was going on, if you were within earshot of him, you couldn’t help but smile.

Happiness, you know, is contagious.  Hang out with happy people and your joy meter rises.  Your brain just laps the stuff up.

So as you head out the door, or into the next room, put your happy walk on.  Get your groove goin’.  Smile at folks as if you and they are sharing some really cool secret.  Whistle.  Hum.  Make the day a party.  Pass out pats on the back.  Say “Gosh, you look great today!”  And when anybody asks you how you are, say “Beautiful!” Say “Fantastic!” Say “Outstanding!  Say “Phenomenal!”  (Because, of course, you are.)

You are one amazing human being, a one-of-a-kind treasure, a star, living in a sea of stars.  So go rock it!  Spread some joy.  See what happens.

You’re gonna love it.

Our brains are wired, science shows, to pay more attention to the bad than to the good, even though our good times far outweigh the lesser ones.  Take a sheet of white paper, place a dot on it, and it’s the dot that you see and remember.  “We’re like Teflon for the good experiences,” one researcher put it, “and Velcro for the bad.”

You can easily see that in your own life.  Looking back over the day, you can name the things that went wrong much more readily than the things that went right—even when your feelings tell you that, overall, you had a pleasant day.

One way to build your happiness quotient is by taking time to anchor the positive moments in your mind.  When a phone call brings good news, take a few seconds to think about why it made you feel happy.  When you read something that inspires or excites you, note the feeling and what was good about it.

Positive feelings last longer when you don’t over-analyze them, though.  So a quick nod of your attention in their direction is all you need.  A simple label will do:  “That was really thoughtful.  I’m touched,” or “How exciting, or beautiful, or encouraging.”

When you consciously recognize the gifts of the day, they become more memorable.  They transform into little jewels of light that you can savor at day’s end, or fodder for pleasant stories to share over dinner.  Noticing the good dots your day with highlights and keeps it from becoming merely a mildly pleasant blur.

Think of it as collecting sparkles.  Give it a try.

“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.

My alarm clock and the rising sun are coinciding these days so that I wake to the painted sky of the morning’s first light.  The sheer luminosity of it cuts right through the lingering haze of sleep, and I gaze in rapt awe as the earth wakes to a new day.

“Gosh, I love waking to happiness,” I thought to myself this morning.  “Waking to happiness.”  The phrase quietly echoed inside my head.  Yes, I thought, every day a little more.  And it’s more beautiful that I ever would have dreamed.

It wasn’t always so.  For long seasons of my life I was wrapped in a weary dullness so dense and heavy that some days it was all I could do to put one foot in front of another to keep on keeping on.

I tell you that to give you hope in case you’re in a struggle of your own.  Here, take this little light beam and tuck it in your pocket.  Let it be a promise to your heart that one day you will open to life’s joy.  One day you will be so filled with it that every cell of your body will sing.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t know how.  You can learn.  And it’s not a matter of hit and miss anymore either.  The ways are known and proven.

In a few short weeks, I’ll be launching another blog with tools you can use to release more happiness into your life.  For now, just be kind to yourself.  You’re not hopeless.  Far from it.  You’re a magnificent being, living in a breathtakingly beautiful world.  It’s just a matter of seeing it, of knowing that it’s the truth.  That’s what I’m trying to share with you in these little daily essays—how beautiful it is, how wondrous, and funny, and glorious, and easy, and glad.  And most of all, how full of love it is.  And that love is singing a dawn song to you right now, to paint your sky with joy, and to bring you the gift of waking to happiness.

Happiness, lying beneath and inside all things, seeks its  joy in blossoming.

It looks at each shape that contains it and says, “This one shall be a cherry; this one shall be a song.”

It looks at you, from the core of your heart (where it lives) and taking full measure of all the strength and beauty and potential of you, it begins its outward flow.

It travels on every movement you make in harmony with your unique and precious pattern.  (Which is why it feels so good to be who you truly are.)  If you were meant to play the piccolo, happiness flows when you hear its sound, leading you in its direction.  If you will be at your best taming tigers, happiness will dance when you hone your agility and keenness and practice the mastery of fear.

Happiness blossoms as you do.  It flows through you and from you whenever you tap your potential, whenever you engage your talents or express your best strengths.  That’s how it builds beauty in the world, and excellence.  And that is why the sages tell us to listen to our own drummers and to follow our bliss.

Somebody told me about a happiness-generating game where you pick a “best of” category each morning and then keep your eye out throughout the day for a winner -   “Most Beautiful,” “Kindest,” “Funniest,” “Most Interesting Fact,” “Best News” – and I decided to play.

Forsythia against a deep blue sky won my “Most Joyful Sight” contest today, hands down.  The sheer brightness of it sent my spirit soaring.

But here’s the really interesting thing. Although I was on the lookout for joy, I found myself noticing contenders for other “best of” categories as well.

A story my co-worker told me about a happy ending to a situation at home qualified as “Best News.”  The “Kindest Act” happened when I spotted a nurse tenderly wiping a tear from the face of an elderly woman in the lobby of our clinic.  “Funniest” was the sight of a huge, happy dog running down the street pulling his little boy, who struggled mightily to keep up at the end of the leash.

And so it went.  The game kept me so alert for goodness that my entire day turned into a celebration of its superb little moments.  I came home with a whole heap of them to enjoy when I reviewed my day.

Play along!  Pick a “best of” category yourself every day for a few days.  See what happens.  And if you’re of a mind, pop in and share what turned up for you.

The tree almost seemed to be quivering with excitement, so laden were its branches with buds, ready to burst into their grand hoorah.

When I first looked up at it and saw them, I laughed out loud with delight.  Who would have thought, mere weeks ago, when the world was sullen beneath thick skies and heaped in knee-deep snow, that such wonders as this would soon appear?  Who would have guessed then that this little tree with its thin, bare branches would erupt into such dazzling beauty?

The potential for miracles is everywhere.  Never discount it, even when the world is stark and bare and shows no sign of life or hope.  You never know what tomorrow will bring.  It could sing with untold joy.

Beneath the bleakest of appearances, happiness waits to color the world, to unfurl its potential, to paint life with its fragrance and light.  It can blossom in the most unexpected places.  It can erupt from hearts that seemed hopelessly frozen and devoid of even a hint of life.

You never know.  A little warmth, a little sunshine, a turning of the globe can work wonders.  Keep faith.  The potential for miracles is everywhere.

I watched a curly haired little boy, his hand enveloped in his father’s, cross the street.  Despite the rush of fellow pedestrians and the din of the traffic, he was completely unafraid.  “How beautiful,” I thought, “is the trust of a child!”  It’s so complete and unquestioning.

I thought about that little picture several times throughout the day, and it reminded me of the way I feel when I’m fully in tune with my happiness.  Regardless of how chaotic the problems of the world or how difficult the current circumstances of my life may be, when I allow myself to relax into the calm of authentic happiness, I sense that somehow I am in good hands, and my ultimate well-being is assured.

Like the little boy, I simply accept that mine is a small and limited perspective.  I thrust my hand into the invisible one that knows the bigger picture, that sees the whole grand scheme, and I feel assured that I will be brought safely through whatever rush and din presses around me.

The happiness that comes from trusting in life lets me perceive it as an adventure instead of as a threat, to meet it with daring instead of cowering from its unknowns in fear.  It lets me begin my day with eagerness for whatever it may bring, knowing that even its tests will enlarge me.  It keeps me open to the joy of discovery instead of treading only those worn paths that I know are secure.

Trusting in life allows happiness to prevail because it lets you walk with confidence.  It keeps you from setting up artificial barriers between you and the joy that’s inherent in living fully.  It comes from a kind of humility, a willingness to acknowledge that Something far larger and wiser than you is guiding your path, as surely as it guides the paths of the stars in the heavens, and growing you to your fullness as surely as it brings forth flowers where once there was only snow-covered ground.

Happiness isn’t all bluebirds and rainbows, you know.  It’s not a Pollyanna, pie-in-the-sky attitude, devoid of a realistic view of life.  It’s more like a ribbon that wends its way through layers and layers of being.

Happiness is believing that, despite the circumstances in which we happen to find ourselves, somehow everything is working together for good, and that if we keep on keeping on, we’ll see that good and feel it in the depths of our bones.

Once happiness embeds itself in us, it acts like a kind of gyroscope, helping us keep our bearings even when we’re sailing storm-tossed waters.  It helps us keep our challenges in perspective, to see setbacks as temporary, to remember our strengths and capabilities.  Happiness is empowering.

Happy people tend to be optimists.  That’s not to say they’re blind to problems.  But they carry within them a measure of hope, a suspicion that seeds of progress and opportunity lie hidden in every adversity.  And that suspicion keeps them on the look-out for slivers of light in the darkness.

Happiness helps us keep our minds open for the glimmerings of fresh ideas.  It fosters our creativity.

It keeps us from accepting defeat, and encourages us to rise again when situations temporarily knock us down.  It helps us claim our resilience.

When happiness becomes your accustomed orientation toward life, you look for reasons to let it express itself.  You seek opportunities to appreciate, to be grateful, to be kind, to love.

Such is the depth of happiness, and the treasure of it.  Practice happiness.  It will touch your days with joy, and light your seasons of darkness.