Musings on Happiness

Readers Advisory:  This is a ponderous post.  Here's the short version:  We are well, usually happy, and always grateful.

Brain cancer is...

...thinking about happiness.

Have you ever had the experience of disparate events, conversations, and readings somehow all coalescing at just the right time to teach you something about life?  That's happening to us today with "happiness." 

Disclaimer:  We are not always happy (although Darrell comes pretty close).  Some days my only goal is to remain upright and moving forward until the clock says that it's acceptable for me to "fall over" and call it a day.  I'm not sure whether it's despite occasional sadness or maybe because of it that we were open to muse about happiness today.  Here are some recent moments of happiness and the lessons we're learning from them.

Sharing Spring Babies Makes Us Happy

Before we even made it to the park this morning, we were laughing aloud at the goslings Terri texted us from her own walk.  When we arrived at the park, we had our first sighting of the season's ducklings.

We were so glad to run into Raymond Family friends to enjoy the wonder of new, fuzzy life with us.  Ducklings are best shared.  Even strangers stopped to laugh together with us.  Spring babies make people happy. 

Sharing Books Makes Us Happy

Brenda and Jay Spencer have been dear friends since Brenda and I were faculty members together.  Brenda, a literacy expert, and I have always enjoyed reading the same books and sharing our perspectives.  Brenda recently recommended   A Gentleman in Moscow.  

We used the Kindle app to share memorable quotes and then discussed the book.  It makes me happy to talk with Brenda about books!

Also, A Gentleman in Moscow makes me happy.  In this piece of historical fiction, the main character, a former aristocrat placed under house arrest in the Metropol hotel during the Bolshevik revolution, finds happiness despite the drastic changes in his life and country. 

The Count was a great model of looking for the best in people and learning from anyone who came his way.  He was flexible in all things and approached life with gratitude.  At one point he said,"Let us simply agree that the wise man celebrates what he can."


I loved this book so much that I started reading it again as soon as I finished it.

Simultaneously, I am loving a gift from my husband, The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling.  (Donna: You need it!)  The author, John Muir Laws uses journaling to understand and enhance his appreciation of nature.  He gives this quote by David Stindl-Rast*: 

"It's not happiness that makes us grateful.  It's gratefulness that makes us happy."

That's it isn't it?  It's the gratefulness for friends who stop, look, and wonder at new life and great literature.  It's laughing together about ducklings.  It's appreciating the lessons we can learn from even fictional good people.  It's the gratefulness for the gift of another moment and the promise it holds.  That's happiness.

Final Question for the Day

Who is happier than Mousse with a bubble machine?

 

Answer:  Darrell, with that same bubble machine.

Alternate Video Link

Happy Day, Friends.


*Stindl-Rast's 14-minute TED Talk on Grateful Living eloquently expresses a simple approach that really resonates with us in our happiness musing state.