Happiness

Happiness is a thread that weaves through each day.  Sometimes it's the dominant thread, sometimes just a pop of color I have to strain my eyes to see.

Someone once said that there are only two emotions: love and fear.  I don't buy that.  Each person's emotional weather is like the nuances of the seasons, full of subtle shifts and shapes, a vibrant palette of mood colors.

What brings happiness varies person to person as much as our choice of partners and friends, the kinds of cars we choose, the ways we arrange our living spaces, where we like to travel.  

My son, Will loves to climb very tall ladders and hang from ropes at dizzying heights. (I have trouble with six-foot ladders.) As a captain in the rescue division of the San Antonio Fire Department, he cuts open crashed cars and pulls people out of water. He loves the adrenalin and adventure of it.  I have never spoken to a firefighter among his many friends who doesn't "love" his work.  Love of work is closely aligned with happiness. 

My friend Freda loves opera and travels great distances to hear good opera.  I know nothing about opera. Maybe happiness (as an appreciator of any art form) comes from understanding what that form can do and being surprised and delighted by the excellent execution of it. 

My mother walks three miles a day; I only walk when we're together and I can barely keep up with her!  She's more disciplined than I am, but it also makes her happy to walk.  

My daughter, Day, loves teaching high school English. That I understand.  I have taught all levels from sixth grade to college and have always found happiness in classrooms.  There's the thrill of organizing material and figuring out new ways to present it.  There's the happy click that happens when the proverbial lights come on in the eyes of students--very satisfying to the soul of a teacher! 

Among the people in my orbit, happiness often comes from creative self-expression and the appreciation of the creative endeavors of others.  The more we know the nuances of anything, the deeper our appreciation, the more potential for sparking joy. Mastery--our own or that of someone else--can take our breath away. The process of moving toward mastery, the losing track of time, so absorbed we are in the doing, can transport us into joy.  

In Janna Malamud Smith's excellent book, An Absorbing Errand, she writes:

"Lots of moments in any week, many of them hilarious and random, please me--especially when people dear to me are present.  Yet, when they all go well, each of the crafts I have attempted to master--writing, photography, and also psychotherapy--leaves me with a deep private sense of satisfaction. I feel stimulated, warm, slightly elated, or otherwise moved; content; purposeful. Though I don't think about it consciously, I sense I'm comfortably aligned with my ideal of myself."

One person's happiness can be another person's pain in the ass.  The question we have to ask--and sometimes ask again after the chewing gum has lost its flavor on the bedpost overnight--is, "What am I doing today when I'm aligned with my ideal of myself?"  What brought happiness a decade ago may no longer be juicy; it may be time to seek something new. 

I love massages, hot stones, reading good books, writing, taking pictures, road trips, conversations, cheese, chocolate, the freedom of a lazy day.  I love beautiful spaces and looking close up at flowers, as I did with some amazing lilies at Central Market this morning. I'm happy settling in for a nap around noon every day, choosing gifts, receiving gifts, making things.  I love learning new things--like Instagram and Photoshop, just for the fun of it.

The opposite of bliss is probably boredom or apathy--though it may be a temporary depression or sadness.  Something is off.  The heart feels claustrophobic. And then--out of the seeming blue--the climate shifts.