~ A Joy Warrior's Journey
A friend told me that if
I want to store something
that I see in my memory bank
to blink my eyes, deliberately,
as if my eyelids were the shutter
of a camera. I do this often now
and suppose it’s also what
the earth is doing when
she closes her eyelids
at night: remembering.
Everything. In case it all
should vanish before morning.
I join her. I intend to carry as much
of it with me as my soul can hold.
Just in case we turn out to be
the very last ones
ever to be here.
The little field flowers don’t grumble
that there’s been so little rain.
They don’t care that they’re not roses.
It doesn’t occur to them to worry
that no one may ever stop to notice
and admire them. They don’t compare
their shapes or hues to their neighbor’s.
“Better” and “more” mean nothing
in their world. No one ever told
them that you have to have whole lists
of things in order to be truly happy.
So they just dance in the breeze,
and radiate their joy, and celebrate
this moment and the Yes of being
just what they are. Right here.
Right now. And isn’t that grand!
All day the little grasshopper leaped across a world of green,
marveling at the great globes of water and the sudden streams
that cascaded down the leaves and stems where he landed.
It was all quite beautiful, he thought, this world of glistening green.
But then, as he looked up the tall, smooth stem where his last leap
had brought him, he saw a bright color that he’d never seen before
and it took his breath away. It wasn’t a bird. It was no leaf, either.
It towered from the very top of the stem where he sat, wondering,
and it seemed to be singing his name. Being a bold and curious fellow,
he quickly determined that he must check it out. And so he flew
up, up, higher than he’d ever been before. And when he landed,
he thought he’d flown to heaven, so golden and glowing
was the world in which he found himself. And the walls
of this heaven were living and breathed his name.
And he was the happiest grasshopper in the world.
Summer’s kaleidoscopic days unfold,
new jewels emerging with every turn
of the lens. The iridescent winged ones,
the rainbows of petals, pearly seeds and berries,
jade and emerald grasses and leaves.
And all the while the air is filled
with fragrance and song, with buzzing
and breeze, and the nights wear
stars and fireflies. Such gifts!
And all so freely given.
All so freely given.
It almost seems quaint now, living in a house that’s crammed with actual books. But that’s me. They’re in every room but the kitchen, and sometimes you’ll find a couple of them there, too.
Every now and then, one of them that I haven’t read in a decade or so kind of yells at me from its place on the shelf: “Hey! Hey! Over here!” And I pull it out and see what it has to say.
This week the one that called to me was How We Choose to be Happy, by Rick Foster and Greg Hicks, two guys who decided to see how happy people got that way and set out on a world-wide search. They interviewed hundreds of people and then studied the results. They knew going in that people have a sort of inborn set-point; some have happier genes than others. But what they found was that regardless of their normal level of happiness, everybody who made nine specific choices raised their happiness level far above the level where they started.
I figured it might be fun to share the nine choices that lead to dramatically increased happiness with you over the next few weeks, just in case you’re kind of bored with cruising at the same old level. We can make a game out of it. First I’ll tell you how to gauge how happy you are now and you can rate yourself on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is “My life sucks” and 10 is “Loving my life totally.” We’ll call that scale your “Happiness Quotient.” Then in, oh, maybe the middle of September, we’ll have a Happiness Review so you can see how far you’ve come. Deal?
Okay. Here’s a way to look at your happiness level. You can’t measure it if you’re not clear about what it is, right? That’s what Foster and Hicks figured out, too. So they asked happy people how they defined happiness. “What we heard was that true happiness is a profound, enduring feeling of contentment, capability and centeredness—the 3 C’s.”
They say that happiness is “a rich sense of well-being that comes from knowing you can deal productively and creatively with all that life offers—both the good and the bad. It’s knowing your internal self and responding to your real needs, rather than the demands of others. And it’s a deep sense of engagement—living in the moment and enjoying life’s bounty.”
That’s a complex definition, but as clear a one as I’ve ever found. So to begin, think about those three C’s. How deep and enduring are your feelings of contentment? How capable do you feel you are in dealing with whatever life brings? How anchored are you in your own real wants and needs, instead of those of others? Then give yourself a rating 1-10. Maybe print out this page and write your number on it. Or copy it to a file and start a little Happiness Journal.
As we go along, I’ll suggest some exercises and practices you can do to expand and deepen your experience of happiness. This week’s suggestion is simply to play along. Take a measure of your current happiness level so you will know where you were when you began.
The reward for playing is that by mid-September, you’ll be well on your way to the happiest YOU that you’ve ever been. Cool, huh?
Here’s a teaser for you: Next week, we’ll look at the first choice you’ll be invited to make—the choice of intending to be happy. Look at those three C’s again and play with that idea. Ask yourself whether you’re willing to set an intention to be happier. We’ll look at the why’s and how’s, and then you can choose.
Meanwhile, I wish you a week of curious anticipation!
Warmly,
Susan
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
Sad Emoji; Smiley Emoji
Choose to participate in beauty.
Let it enter you and find in you
a glad thanksgiving. Choose
to celebrate the moments
of goodness. Let them sing
to your soul and find there
a harmonious and eager response.
Choose truth, which writes itself
in a hand so bold that it shines
through every deception.
Then you will live in the heart
of life’s garden; glad, even when
there are thorns.
Send up the fireworks! The sun has returned!
Here’s balm for the bees, and to please
all who wander here at the forest’s edge.
The long-awaited summer has arrived.
Let the celebrations begin, the hoorahs
go forth. Greet this glory with singing.
For now, at least, the rains have ceased,
and the sun warms the green sea of foliage
gone wild and red flowers bursting with joy.
July comes in, barefoot and sleeveless, ready to pour it on.
She opens some paper-thin orchid-hued petals
and smiles at the sweetness of their hue.
She has a thousand more blossoms in her bag.
She’s fond of high color, after all.
But mostly she’s interested
in pushing out the veggies and the fruit,
in driving the nuts and seeds toward ripeness.
She’s all about widening the leaves,
deepening the green, making edibles from light and air.
She has countless mouths to feed
and she intends to satisfy them all.
“Ripen!” she trumpets as she glides on the sunbeams.
“Grow! Become what you were born to be!”
Patiently the lily waited, soaking in the light, storing it in her liquid cells.
Hers, she had been told, would be the honor of acting as June’s parting gift.
She held her petals in place even as her swelling bud pressed toward the day.
Finally, as the sun rose through a luscious pink and lavender sky, June came to her and whispered, “Now, child. This is the day.” And with utmost grace the lily opened and began her ballet, dancing as the music of morning sang June’s Anthem of Farewell.
“May all your days be golden. May your hours be kissed with joy. And although there be storms and darkness, may your heart forever glow with the love of the shining endless sun.”
“And so may it be,” sang the lily. “So may it be, and Amen.”
Sometimes when I hear a thought or phrase that I like, I jot it down on a scrap of paper. One day I made a collage with some of the scraps, pasting them onto a finger-painted background. Usually I walk past it without glancing at it; it’s been on my office wall for a fairly long while. But one day I heard a poll that stunned me and called one of the thoughts to mind.
The poll asked Americans how often they felt afraid. To my astonishment, a little over 50% of the respondents said they felt afraid at least once a day—even when they were in their own homes.
It wasn’t so much that people were feeling anxious that surprised me. We are, it seems, being pummeled by threatening events, both natural and man-made, these days. Every day it’s something new and dire—floods, fires, erupting volcanoes, rampant inflation, violent crime, looming diseases, domestic contention, international unrest. If you pay attention at all, feeling some level of uneasiness is a given, however slight it might be.
What surprised me about the survey was how many of us said they felt outright fear at least once a day, and that they felt it even when they were secure in their own homes. Frankly, that alarmed me. The “fear porn” craze that’s beaming at us from every form of media is having a greater impact than I imagined.
“News,” of course, from whatever source, has always featured the most alarming or tragic events. It’s drama that sells. But these days the news seems darker than ever, as if some thick, ominous cloud was enveloping the world. A lot of us feel a kind of tension in the air, as if a dangerous storm is looming. And maybe it is. Life on this planet comes with storms.
We’re also living in a time of rapidly accelerating change. We hardly have time to learn how to operate our daily systems and tools before they need an upgrade. We’re constantly adjusting to something different, and that can be nerve-wracking in itself.
But you know what? Even if this stretch of the road is a mess and we seem to be going too fast, we’re alive. We’re alive, and we’re human beings. And that’s a lot. Humans are remarkable beings, after all, capable of amazing feats. We’re resilient and creative. We’re prone to kindness and hope. We’re inventive and resourceful. We persevere and endure. We have spirit and reason and beating hearts and pumping lungs and voices. And more than that, down deep, we love each other.
When the world’s moving too fast, slow down. Take in your surroundings. Chances are the things around you are pretty much the same as the last time you noticed them. Same scene, same people, same sky. And here you are, alive and breathing in the midst of it, right this very minute. Let yourself notice that. Think about all that had to have happened, exactly as they did, for you to be here at all, experiencing being human in a complex, ever-changing world. Then decide to make the best of it—no matter how paltry your best, from time to time, might seem. You matter, you know.
Oh, and that quote on my bulletin board? It says, “Alertness and paranoia are not the same thing. Be aware and at peace.” Personally, I think that’s good counsel.
Wishing you a week of peace and smooth going.
Warmly,
Susan
Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay