Due to a family health emergency, I’m taking a break from Catching
Happiness. Thank you for your understanding.
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| Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash |
In honor of National Poetry Month, today’s post is a poem courtesy of American Life in Poetry.
Introduction by Kwame Dawes: Sometimes a poem achieves its beauty by a certain fixation on a small detail that is not burdened with the need to be “important”. Here, in “Oolong”, Adrienne Su creates her own tea ritual, a meditative moment to reflect on the ordinary, the quotidian. Tea and the drinking of tea, treated to such careful study, become a way to think of life as it moves from strong to weak and back again.
Oolong
From strong to weak, a single cup
can carry me from waking up
to the mild hush of the bedtime snack.
Fresh hot water brings it back
from depletion, or threat of such.
What ancient genius gained so much
from roasting pieces of a shrub?
I watch it change, as daylight flags,
from strong to weak,
ending with the faded touch
of flavor that was once robust.
faintness helps the mind relax,
but part of me remains perplexed
that every day unfurls as it must,
from strong to weak.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also
supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Poem copyright ©2021 by Adrienne Su, “Oolong” from Peach State, (University of
Pittsburgh Press, 2021) Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the
publisher. Introduction copyright ©2021 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction's author, Kwame Dawes, is George W. Holmes Professor of English
and Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner at the University of Nebraska.
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| New property--Tank is on the left |
The barn where I board recently moved to a larger property a
few miles away from the original location. It’s a couple of minutes farther
from my house, but the main road leading there is a straight highway with light
enough traffic that I can use cruise control most days.
This is my version of a commute.
An unexpected simple pleasure
I’ve spent 18 years driving back and forth to barns, and to my surprise, these drives have become simple pleasures in and of themselves. I generally don’t enjoy driving, but this road is so well known to me that it’s not stressful to drive it. There’s not a lot of traffic, I won’t get lost, or have no place to park when I arrive at my destination. I’m going somewhere I love.
I listen to music or an audio book, and watch the sky,
admiring the clouds (or wondering if it’ll rain), and looking for rainbows.
My mind sometimes gets busy when I slide behind the steering
wheel, but it becomes especially active when I drive to the barn. It’s like all
the thoughts I’ve been holding at bay while otherwise occupied flood my mind
when my guard is down. This can be both good and bad.
I often think over problems I’d like to solve, or ponder a tricky
passage of writing. Sometimes it’s more like asking my subconscious mind to get
to work while I’m at the barn and completely absorbed—“Here’s the problem, get
back to me with the answer!” Sometimes the break produces solutions, sometimes
not.
Somehow, driving amplifies my emotions. During hard times I’ve
pulled to the side of the road to cry. During happier ones, I’ve joyfully belted
out show tunes and other favorites, singing along to the radio or to some of my
collected music. I often feel gratitude while driving—for the privilege of
having my horse, and lately for having a reliable vehicle and money for gas.
“What’s Next Syndrome”
In the rest of my life, I’m often in a hurry, and want to Be
There Already. I suffer from “What’s Next Syndrome,” always impatient to go on
to what’s next instead of embracing now. In the car, I’m in my own
private world—no one can ask me questions or make demands. There’s nothing for
me to do except what I’m already doing: driving. (See my essay “Driving I-5 in the USA” for similar reflections.) That 12-minute drive to and from the barn allows me to transition from work to play and back again, and I’m letting myself enjoy it!
What’s an unexpected thing in your life that makes you
happy?
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| Photo by Ksenia Makagonova on Unsplash |
April is National Poetry Month in the U.S., and almost every year I write a blog post to promote it. Why? Because since my teens, reading poetry has brought both happiness and solace—a simple pleasure I like to share here on Catching Happiness.
And also I need the reminder to include more poetry in my
reading life. I usually read one or two books of poetry each year, and I still
subscribe to a weekly email from American Life in Poetry (see link below), but
National Poetry Month reminds me to read more.
For the poetry curious
If you’re curious about poetry, or would like to get back to
reading it, here are a few easy ways to get started:
Sign up for Poem-a-Day here.
If a poem a day is too much, subscribe to American Life in
Poetry’s once-a-week poem newsletter.
Listen to the Poetry Foundation’s Poetry Off the Shelf
podcast.
Enjoy some Spring Poems—classic and contemporary poems to
celebrate the advent of spring.
Author and blogger Modern Mrs. Darcy (Anne Bogel) has written several posts on poetry, including this one. You might also enjoy hearing her discussion of poetry with her friend and poet Dave Harrity on Episode 75 of What Should I Read Next?
Check my post “It’s National Poetry Month—No Foolin’” for links to apps and other poetry resources.
And for anyone whose interest in the art and culture of Ukraine has been piqued, here are two poets whose work I’ve recently come across: Ilya Kaminsky (“That Map of Bone and Opened Valves”) and Serhiy Zhadan (read two of his poems here).
If you’re a poetry lover, what are your favorite ways to experience poetry?
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| Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash |
I hate to break it to you, but 2022 is one quarter of the
way done…or it will be next week.
Time seems to have picked up its pace, racing forward with
no regard to my readiness for it to be the end of March and Almost Summer (in
Florida we have two seasons: Summer and Almost Summer). While I’m a little
surprised to find myself teetering on the verge of April, the first three
months of the year haven’t been all bad, despite bouts of depression and
continued horror around the world. This year, I’m going to try something new:
reviewing both my word of the year and my goals every quarter. Previously, I’ve
been much more haphazard about the review process.
The year so far
I’ve taken to heart what I mentioned in “First Thoughts for 2022”: “I want a year of ease and serendipity and settling into the spaces of my life in a way that feels organic instead of molded to fit arbitrary goals I set for myself.” I’ve continued to concentrate on my word of the year, simpler. Since I didn’t set a big bunch of goals at the beginning of the year, I don’t feel bad about not having a long list of shiny accomplishments checked off.
The thing I’ve noticed most is that so far this year, I have
been operating more slowly and mindfully. I catch myself rushing, and slow
down. I single task more often. I’m becoming more realistic about what I can
accomplish in a day. This is a valuable mindset shift that’s starting to feel
more natural.
A few noteworthy accomplishments:
- Continued to add slips of paper to my Happiness Jar.
- Read two books related to my exploration of simpler (The Power of Less, by Leo Babauta and Do Less, by Kate Northrup). Next up, Digital Minimalism, by Cal Newport.
- Moved Tank to new accommodations. My entire boarding barn relocated to a new, larger property this week. A huge undertaking for the owner, and a bit of upheaval in my settled routine, but the property is great and it will be a positive move. (Tank is happy, so I’m happy.)
- Continued taking a couple of online courses, one personal and one related to blogging.
Coming attractions
During the next three months, I plan to continue to take
small steps toward reenergizing my writing. I’m going to start planning a trip
to California to see family. And I’ll continue some cleaning and organizing
projects around my house.
I’m also preparing to take an internet break in April (inspired
by David from Raptitude, who wrote about taking an internet break here, and
about how it went here.
I’m far too tied to my devices—laptop, tablet, phone. A
couple of weeks ago, my (newish) laptop’s internal fan died, and I had to use
my old (slow and glitchy) laptop to complete some work until we could fix the
new one. I couldn’t go even one day without a computer. It’s true
that most of my work uses a computer, whether for research, connection, or
actual writing, but I also read quite a few blogs and listen to a couple of
podcasts on a semi-regular basis. I’ve been scrolling Instagram nightly after
dinner while we’re watching something mindless on TV. I try to maintain one day
a week where I don’t go to the computer, but I don’t always manage that. I find
that when I have a few minutes, I jump online to “catch up” on blog reading or emails.
There are other better ways to spend time.
As I continue to learn what simpler means to me, I
feel that it’s about “less, but better.” About going deeper into things that
matter rather than trying to do or be All the Things. About slowing down enough
to feel content. So far, I’m pleased with my word of the year choice, and after
some rough days, I’m feeling slightly more positive overall. Baby steps, one
day at a time. Learning to live with hard things and still function. I’m
looking forward to the second quarter of 2022.
How is your year progressing so far? Any surprises?
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| But Men Must Work and Women Must Weep, 1883 by Walter Langley, Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash |
“‘Art is the highest form of hope,’ said painter Gerhard Richter. But hope is not about knowing how things will turn out—it is moving forward in the face of uncertainty. It’s a way of dealing with uncertainty. ‘Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable,’ writes Rebecca Solnit. To have hope, you must acknowledge that you don’t know everything and you don’t know what’s going to happen. That’s the only way to keep going and the only way to keep making art: to be open to possibility and allow yourself to be changed.”
—Austin
Kleon, Keep Going
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| Photo by Justin Ha on Unsplash |
Even though I love winter in Florida (so much less sweating!),
right about now I need a refresh. My routines have become ruts. I’m caught up
in reading bad news and forgetting how fortunate I am. I don’t want to fail to
enjoy or appreciate what I have, and I want to gently encourage myself to move
forward on my personal and professional goals. If you feel the same way, maybe
you need a spring refresh, too!
Since my word of the year is simpler, I’m starting
small and not adding a lot of unnecessary complexity. I’ve chosen these six
simple pleasures to embrace spring:
- Growing a mini herb garden
Despite (ahem) mixed success with gardening, hope springs
eternal. I love having fresh herbs available when I cook, and they are less
work to grow than vegetables. M-a-y-b-e I can keep them alive through our
brutal summer? Right now, I have basil, rosemary, oregano, and thyme.
Unfortunately, my lavender plant recently died a quick and puzzling death. I
may call this good, or I may add one or two additional herbs, depending on how
these fare.
- Keeping fresh flowers on the kitchen table
This is a continuation of something I’ve been doing for a
while, but it brings me so much joy every day that it’s worth
mentioning. (The only downside is keeping my cat from pulling on the flowers and knocking over the whole shebang, sending a waterfall onto the floor!)
- Investing in new pots and pans
My current set was given to us as a wedding present more
than 30 years ago. I cook dinner most nights, so my pans get used a lot. I
won’t tell you how long it took me to decide on a set, but I finally did! I
haven’t actually used them yet—they’re sitting on the kitchen table until I clear
out the old ones—but I’m looking forward to trying them out.
- Lighting a candle (rather than cursing the darkness)
Even though the days are getting longer, I still get up
while it’s dark because my husband goes to work so early. I don’t like it.
So I try to make the early mornings as pleasant as possible. I enjoyed the calm
I felt while reading by the Christmas tree in December, so I’ve tried to
recreate that feeling by lighting a scented candle and keeping the lamplight low
while I do my morning reading and journaling. It feels like being held in a
little circle of peace.
- Following a schedule
Over the past couple of pandemic years, my already loose
schedule went completely to pieces. I felt like I was either always working,
or always wasting time. I’m experimenting with putting myself on a
schedule with set work hours, an actual lunch break, and weekends off. I need a
way to work with reduced distraction while at the same time keep work from
bleeding into all waking hours. My goal is to reduce the number of decisions I
make about my time, while still retaining some flexibility. Right now, a schedule
feels like a safe place, and a way focus on what I can do instead of on all the
things I can’t.
- Wearing perfume
My friend and walking buddy, Barb, inspired me to stop
saving my perfume for “someday.” During our walks, we often share our efforts
to declutter and organize our spaces, and one thing that comes up is things
that we’ve been saving for special occasions. Perhaps you’ve noticed we’ve had
very few special occasions in the past two and a half years? We both have
multiple perfumes and scented lotions cluttering up our bathrooms. I’ve started
putting on perfume almost every day, even if I’m not leaving the house. Just
because it gives me pleasure.
Are you ready for your own spring refresh?
Refreshing your life doesn’t have to cost a lot of money or
require huge changes. If you’re not sure where to start, think about what would
be pleasing to your senses. What sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches
will refresh your spirit and boost your mood? Perhaps you could start listening
to music while you cook or do other household chores (also on my list to try!),
eat at a new-to-you restaurant (or buy takeout), experiment with diffusing essential
oils, set up a reading nook with an extra fluffy throw, or refresh your home or
office by buying some spring-ish decor (or even just rearranging what you
already have). Remember, you don’t have to make major changes to see real
benefits…unless you want to!
Just writing about these things is boosting my mood! This
weekend I’m going to see what other spring refresh-ments I can think of.
How about you? What are your favorite ways to refresh your
life in spring? Do share in the comments!
For more ideas for bringing spring joy into your life,
check out these resources (no affiliation):
Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness, Ingrid Fetell Lee (Amazon, Bookshop). I wrote a blog post about this book here.
Aesthetics of Joy website (by the author of Joyful)
Hill House Living, Paula Sutton (Amazon, Bookshop).
Alexandra Stoddard’s writings, particularly Living a Beautiful Life (Amazon, Bookshop) and Creating a Beautiful Home (Amazon, Bookshop).
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| Photo by Sensei Minimal on Unsplash |
Lately I’ve noticed a worrying trend in myself—my tendency to overthink things has gone into overdrive. Around 2 a.m., my eyes pop open and my mind takes off. My thoughts run in circles, replay the time I was brusque with my mother-in-law, or dash ahead looking for things to fret about.
Query: why do I never wake up at 2 a.m. to replay something
delightful that happened? Or to think about something I’m looking forward to?
Hello, my name is Kathy and I’m an overthinker
Before I continue, I want to clarify that there are several
types of overthinking—some more serious than others. What I’m speaking about
here is a generalized pattern of negative or repetitive thoughts as well as a
tendency to spend an inordinate amount of time obsessing over making a
decision. For me, it looks like falling into a spiral of replaying mistakes and
of worry about the future, especially when I’m tired. Small decisions loom
large and little challenges feel overwhelming. Sometimes I can’t go to sleep,
or I wake in the middle of the night as described above. From what I hear from my friends, I’m not
alone.
It's certainly not bad to think. But as our world continues
to offer us tragedy and suffering on an unimaginable scale, our (my) thinking
can become overthinking. And overthinking isn’t good for us. Jenny
Maenpaa wrote, “Overthinking is an anxious tendency that I encounter in my
psychotherapy practice. There are many ways we tend to overthink, such as
rehashing the past—replaying the same scenario over and over in our head. Worrying
is another form, in which we obsess over what the future might bring…. Research
has shown that overthinking can decrease energy, limit creativity and cause sleeping
problems.”
(Click on the first link below for three excellent exercises
she uses to reduce overthinking.)
Thinking too much can cause overwhelm, keep us from making
decisions, and drain the joy from life.
Practices for coping with overthinking
Here are four practices that have helped me. Maybe they’ll
help you, too:
Letting go of perfectionism (or trying to). As Anne
Bogel notes in Don’t Overthink It, right doesn’t equal perfect. When I
start to get wound up about the possibility that I didn’t make the absolute
perfect choice of new cookware to replace my decrepit pots and pans at the absolute
best price, I remember that I did my research, thought about the purchase,
and made a reasoned choice. That’s good enough. I don’t need to obsess about
it.
Postponing the thoughts. I don’t know why my brain
thinks 2 a.m. is the ideal time to trot out every concern, little or large,
that has been on my mind—but it does. I’ve started simply saying, “I’ll think
about this in the morning. Right now, I need to rest.”
Distracting myself. In the middle of the night, I
make mental lists: alphabetical book or movie titles, foods, and so on. During
the day, I play a game, read, watch a video or TV show, or play with Luna. Anything
that will give my busy brain something else to ponder.
Repeating affirmations. Before bed lately I’ve been turning
to Morgan Harper Nichols’ “Phrases to repeat to yourself late at night,” which
I found on Instagram:
I am loosening my shoulders.
I am relaxing my jaw.
I am taking a moment to stretch.
I am taking deep breaths.
I am looking forward to rest.
I am releasing worry.
I am letting go.
I am trusting in the process.
I am ready to dream a beautiful dream.
I am practicing peace.
During daylight hours, if I need to reach for encouraging words, I read through a few of the 3 x 5 cards with inspirational quotes I’ve
gathered over the years.
Overthinking divorces us from simple pleasures. It doesn’t help
us make better decisions or be kinder to others. All it does is exhaust and
overwhelm us. The world itself is exhausting enough without our own thoughts
becoming a source of anxiety. I hope these practices will help you as they’ve
been helping me.
Do you have any practices you use to calm your thoughts?
Please share in the comments!
For more information:
“A
psychotherapist shares the 3 exercises she uses every day ‘to stop
overthinking’”
Dropping the Rope: The Power of Letting Go
Life
Lessons From the Barn—Relax Your Mind
Don’t
Overthink It,
Anne Bogel (Amazon, Bookshop)
Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts, Martin N. Seif, Sally M. Winston (Amazon, Bookshop)
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| Photo by Denny Müller on Unsplash |
“This minute decide to never again beg anyone for the love, respect, and attention you should be showing yourself. Today, look at yourself in the mirror and say, ‘I love you, and from now on I’m going to prove it!’ When you practice self-love and self-care, you give yourself the opportunity to be happy. And when you are happy, you become a better friend, a better lover, a better family member, and a better you.”
—Marc and Angel Chernoff,
Getting Back to Happy
Though like all registered American Quarter Horses, Tank
turned another year older on Jan. 1, his actual foal date is Feb. 18. For reference, a 27-year-old horse is roughly equivalent to a
78-year-old human. (And to answer the question nearly everyone asks, horses live an average of 25-30 years.)
Tank is finally starting to show his age, though he’s still
in remarkably good shape for an old guy. I’m currently working with his vet and
farrier on a non-life-threatening lameness issue that is keeping me from riding
him. Even so, we have had to turn him out alone in a smaller enclosure because
he was goofing with the younger horses and galloping around like a maniac
because of the cooler weather. He still gets plenty of grooming, carrots, and
treats, and I’m going to look into alternate activities to do with him while he’s
temporarily sidelined, and for when riding is permanently off the table. Maybe
I can teach him to paint!
At the end of this month, we will have been together for 18
years. I’d wanted a horse since childhood, and when my husband and I were
contemplating relocating to Florida (his home state) from California (mine), he
sweetened the deal by promising that I could have a horse if we made the move. I
don’t think either of us really thought that would be possible, but I filed
that promise away for many years until time and finances made it possible to
consider. Tank has been one of the best investments of time and money I’ve made
in my life.
Tank has been a friend and partner through
adventures, he’s taught me lessons in patience, sacrifice, kindness and
courage. During our rides, he’s helped me dig deep to conquer fear. I’ve learned
to put aside my own comfort to give him what he needs when he’s sick or injured
(twice a day visits to the barn to flush wounds or medicate eyes during the height
of summer heat and humidity…). I’ve cried into his mane, and allowed the sound
of him munching hay soothe the sore spots in my heart. We’ve gone on
trail rides, explored different types of terrain and jumps at Fannin Hill Farm,
and hit the water together at a lake and the beach. I’ve spent hours just
hanging out with him while he grazes. And as a bonus, I’ve met some of my
closest friends at the two barns where he has lived. I’ve written about our
experiences many times here on Catching Happiness. A few highlights:
I wrote about the process of finding him for the AQHA’s member magazine:
I’ve “learned to speak horse” and hosted horse birthday parties.
I’ve imagined what it would be like “If My Horse Had an Instagram Account.”
I’ve learned so many life lessons along the way, like this one.
And I’ve shared some of our more mundane experiences in “Look Mom, No Cavities!” and “A Little Off the Top and Sides and…Belly.”
Here are a few photos from our time together. Happy birthday, Tank—thank you for all the simple pleasures and everyday adventures!
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| Fannin Hill |
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| Our first day together |
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| Beach boy |
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| Experimenting with riding without a bridle |
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| Ho ho horse |
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| In his prime, with a shining summer coat |
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| The two of us just hanging out |
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| Summer 2021 |
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| Tank and Paloma, the first of his lady friends at our new barn |
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| Contemplating life |
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| Snoozing |
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| On the trail |
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| Happy New Year 2022 |
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| Photo by Ahmed Zayan on Unsplash |
The Internet can be a mixed blessing. It can entertain us, teach us, and keep us connected with our friends and family—and it can deal our self-esteem some crushing blows and contribute to FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Today let’s concentrate on how it can brighten up our lives! Since many of us have been struggling either with winter blahs or various other challenges related to staying positive, I thought I’d devote a Link Love post to some links I’ve found uplifting and encouraging lately. Be sure to share any of your discoveries in the comments below!
Modern Mrs. Darcy’s annual “10 Things Saving My Life Right Now” post is always a comfort. Be sure to read the comments, too.
I’ve listened to this piece several times since I read this
story. It’s so beautiful and calming, and what an amazing accomplishment.
100 Ways to Improve Your Life Without Really Trying. The simpler the better! I do #20 several times a week, working on #57, and #78 is genius!
“The One Habit to Break to Find More Joy.” Ingrid Fetell Lee
always has something thought-provoking to say.
Stories like this one help me remember that there are kind
people in the world, and that small gestures can make big differences.
The “How Not to Be Grumpy” episode of the Soul + Wit podcast
came at the perfect time. I picked up some suggestions to help me cope with the
days that I feel less than *happy*.
More music. Stunning cover of Stairway to Heaven performed by Heart:
Have a happy weekend!
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| The inspiration for the title of this blog post |
Well, kind of. I missed my normal post day last week because I experienced a depressive episode. I’d been working on a post about mindset, focus, and expectations, and I just wasn’t able to finish and post it as I planned on Friday.
I don’t tell you this to ask for sympathy or make excuses. While
I don’t want to dwell on them, I feel it’s important for us to be open about
mental health struggles. I want Catching Happiness to be a place of uplift,
peace, and inspiration. I want to contribute to the “happy” in the world, to
offer encouragement, a positive attitude, and support to you, my dear readers
and friends. I know we’re all facing our own challenges and troubles, and I believe we need to be real about how happy or unhappy we are, rather
than ignore or gloss over what feels hard.
Today is a better day. I’m leaning on the habits that (mostly) hold me together.
Today is not as hard as Friday was. Maybe tomorrow will be better. Maybe, I’ll even finish that blog post about focus, mindset, and expectations!
Note: Jenny Lawson, “The Bloggess,” writes extremely
well about the condition of depression, and I especially enjoyed “Is Today Hard?” (post contains adult language).
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Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash |
“Hope isn’t the same thing as happiness. You don’t need to be happy to be hopeful. You need instead to accept the unknowability of the future, and that there are versions of that future that could be better than the current one. Hope, in its simplest form, is the acceptance of possibility.
“The acceptance that if we are suddenly lost in a forest, there will be a way through.”
—Matt Haig, The Comfort Book
Quick, tell me three happy things that happened this week. They
can be small or large, they just have to be something you noticed and took
pleasure in.
Surprisingly hard, isn’t it? It’s so much easier to remember
the trauma, the disasters and catastrophes, than it is to remember the quiet
little moments that actually make up most of our day-to-day lives. I wanted to
change that for 2022, and one of my solutions is the Happiness Jar.
Happy little things
I can’t take credit for the Happiness Jar. The original concept, which I’ve seen attributed to author Elizabeth Gilbert, is to jot down
one thing you’re happy about or grateful for every day and store it in a jar.
At the end of the year, read all the good things that happened to you over the
past 12 months.
I’m tweaking it a little. Instead of one thing every day,
which seems overwhelming to me (and not simpler), I’m going with a minimum
of one per week, with the option to put in more if I so choose. At the very
least, I’ll have 52 slips of paper, and that’s a lot of happy little things! Since
Jan. 1, there was one (rough) week where I had just one good thing to put in. But
last week, I already had two by Wednesday.
Focusing on recording the happy little things has made me
start to look for things to write down, and to schedule things to look forward
to. I think this is going to be the gentle nudge I needed to start planning a
few more simple pleasures and everyday adventures.
Another great thing about this practice is the happy little things can be really little…and they can (and should) be things that you find happy/uplifting/funny/awesome/fill-in-the-blank. This is a personal practice, intended for your eyes only.
As Liz Gilbert wrote, “In fact, my happiest moment each day
is usually just a glance of something sweet and small, an unexpected flush of
emotion, a bit of sun on my face, a pleasant encounter on the sidewalk, a cool
glass of water at just the right instant, the cat-like contentment after a nap,
a glimpse of a bird just out of the corner of my eye, a recognition of some
tiny lovely thing.”
I thought you might enjoy seeing this little project come together, so here are a few photos. You'll see I had a lot of “help.” I was lucky enough to have a bunch of cute papercrafts given to me by a friend that I could use to decorate my jar. And to jot down my happy little things, I’m using pages from a mini notebook someone else gave me. So much happiness and affection in this one small package!
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| Started with a plain canning jar and a small notebook |
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| Collected some papercrafts and ribbons and fooled around to see which I liked the looks of |
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| Took the ribbon out of the cat’s mouth |
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| The finished product |
Containing your happiness
Of course, you don’t need to buy or make anything special to
record the happy little things that happen. You can keep a journal of happy,
either handwritten or on your computer. You can take a photo of what brings you
joy and create a folder to keep the pictures in. You can look at your happy
little things every week, every month, once a year, or never. This is YOUR
happiness, and YOUR happiness jar should you decide to actually use a jar! There aren’t any rules! (
The point of the Happiness Jar is to pay attention to and record good things. We all have them, even in the depths of crisis and despair. Maybe this will help us hold onto them a little tighter.
How do you record happy little things? Please share in the
comments below. And do let me know if you decide to do a happiness jar of your
own!
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| Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash |
How have the first two weeks of the new year been treating you?
I’m finally taking a breath after a whirlwind last couple of
weeks of 2021, another year I’m not sorry to put behind me. I’ve spent the last
couple of weeks recovering (I’m so tired…you?) and regrouping. (Read:
digging out my office which has become, once again, a Pit of Despair.)
The beginning of a new year is a natural place to think
about goals and changes you want to make. But this year, instead of planning a
whole year’s worth of goals, or diving head first into the deep end, I’m taking
a gentler approach overall. For example:
Word of the year
Remember my word of the year (WOTY), dare, from last
year? Probably not, because after that first optimistic post, I don’t think I
revisited it on the blog even once. And not much more often in private. Too
many varied and disrupting events took place in 2021, and dare just
didn’t fit well with how the year played out. In this instance, choosing a word
of the year was kind of like when health experts try to match the annual flu
vaccine with the flu strains expected to be circulating…and fail!
In retrospect, a better WOTY for 2021 would have been
“survive.”
So anyway, as 2021 wound down, a word kept reappearing
in my consciousness, and as I usually do when that happens, I’ve taken it as my
WOTY for 2022:
Simpler.
Not shiny or glamorous, but fitting, in that the past two
years have made me hunker down and reevaluate my life in unexpected ways. I’m
looking forward to seeing how simpler influences how the year unfolds. Two
things that come to mind immediately are the way I cook (my menu planning and
cooking need a revamp that makes them simpler) and what I concentrate on
in my writing. I’ve been chasing too many different types of writing projects
and I’ve managed both to lose the joy of writing as well as dilute my focus and
skill level. I’m sure more will come to my attention as the year goes on.
(Two of my online friends have also chosen words of the
year. Read their posts here and here.)
Goal setting/yearly planning
I’m very good at complicating things, overscheduling, and
being wound too tightly. Rushing, rushing, rushing. Fitting more in when I
should take more time to do fewer things. (Another way in which simpler
may help.)
I came across this sentence in something I read (forgive me, I can’t remember where I found it), and this sums up what I want for 2022:
“I want a year of ease and serendipity and settling into the spaces of my life in a way that feels organic instead of molded to fit arbitrary goals I set for myself.”
I’m slowing way down. Being a lot
more deliberate. There are a few things on my “I’d like to accomplish” list for
2022. I’m using Gretchen Rubin’s “22 for 22” framework, but I only have about
10 things listed so far.
What I’m not doing
I’m not doing any reading challenges. I’m not going on a diet. I’m not “making big plans,” at least not yet.
And speaking of plans, I just finished reading Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, by Oliver Burkeman (Amazon, Bookshop, no affiliation), which is not about time management in the traditional way at all. This passage resonated:
“…planning is an essential tool for constructing a meaningful life, and for exercising our responsibilities toward other people. The real problem isn’t planning. It’s that we take our plans to be something they aren’t. What we forget, or can’t bear to confront, is that, in the words of the American meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein, ‘a plan is just a thought.’ We treat our plans as though they are a lasso, thrown from the present around the future, in order to bring it under our command. But all a plan is—all it could ever possibly be—is a present-moment statement of intent. It’s an expression of your current thoughts about how you’d ideally like to deploy your modest influence over the future. The future, of course, is under no obligation to comply.”
Almost none of my plans over the past two years have come to
fruition. I’m disappointed, but at the same time, simply grateful to be alive
and relatively unscathed. I’m not even going to try to guess what 2022 holds,
but I am going to stay optimistic and open. To continue to embrace simple
pleasures and everyday adventures—and to share any happy discoveries with you.
Do you have any special plans for 2022? What is your word
of the year?
For more easy, beginning-of-the-year inspiration, check out
these links:
The Soul + Wit podcast, “Less Hustle, More Happiness.”
The Action for Happiness Happier January calendar.
