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I just finished reading an excerpt from a piece called Happiness Revisited by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. I thought I would include some of it here-but I changed my mind. I loved the piece and plan to dig a little deeper in to the writing of M.C. Happy as I will now refer to him as. What I am going to do is give you my spin on his spin. Life and happiness are up to you. You can sit on your donkey and tell everyone who won't listen how bad life is these days or you can stand up and fight. Stand up and fight for every minute you have left on this beautiful planet. Yes, manure happens. It should make you pay attention not curl up like a poked fuzzy caterpillar. Somewhere around the fifty mile marker I made the decision to fight. My back was killing me. I had cataracts. I got so many AARP mailings I asked County Waste for an extra recycling bin. I asked myself if this was the way I wanted to go out- bent and broken or did I want to fill the tank one last time and take a Thelma and Louise run for the border. As life will do, spike-strips will be thrown. Storms will approach from out of nowhere casting hail and hell upon you. Don't be scared. Tomorrow the watered grass will grow a bit taller and greener. Hail melts. Police cruisers only have one set of strips (I guess?). The key to happiness in my copy of This Old Horse is to enjoy the little things just as much as the big things. Savor that day working around the house. Today I installed two replacement windows and only spewed one or two words that began with family member prefaces, like Son and Mother. It was rewarding to do it myself. It gave me satisfaction. It made me (?). See, I knew you were paying attention. How happy the little things make you is up to you and may depend on how many cold beverages you celebrate with. That's okay too. Just keep your donkey in the backyard and off the road.
Have a "Happy" Fourth of July week everyone.
i love this! you are so great. so glad to be in your loop thanks to jk. keep going!
ReplyDeleteI found a trick on how to enjoying happiness. When you are being dealt a bad hand, don't spend time mourning over it, deal with it as swiftly as possible and don't loose any sleep over it. Wake up the next morning with a smile on your face. It's impossible to be happy all the time -- so learn ways to deal with what life sends you. I am not familiar with the writings of M.C. -- would like to know more of what he has to say. Maybe I can find him on Amazon. Good post -- barbara
ReplyDeleteBarbara, the article was in June edition of THE SUN magazine. The column is called The Dog-Eared Page. You may be able to see some of it on THE SUN website.
DeleteLovely sentiments, John. I find the older I get the easier it becomes to just go with the flow. When we're young we don't realise there's not much we can do about life's ups and downs. As we age we see them for what they are, just bumps on the road of life, although some can be pretty horrendous. Life is life, in all it's incarnations. None of us escape the bad times but there's always someone who has it worse. Sometimes I wonder how I'd deal with the problems some folk have to endure.
ReplyDelete“Here is a test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: If you´re alive it isn't.” Richard Bach.