Happiness

Double Nickels

September 09, 2019

Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash

This week I’m celebrating a milestone birthday—55—“double nickels,” as they say. I wanted to write a post like, “55 Things I’ve Learned in 55 Years,” or even just share a few nuggets o’ wisdom with you. 

Well, I would if I could.

Instead, what I’ve learned over the past couple of months is that I still have so much to learn! That even at the mature age of 55, I make dumb mistakes, feel at a loss when faced with certain problems, and that the depth of my resources for coping with a series of mishaps and inconveniences is not as robust as I would like it to be.

All good things to learn, if a bit humbling. Does that happen to you? Just when you feel like you have a handle on life, it all goes catawampus?

For too long, worry, stress, and frustration have been my frequent companions.  If you read August’s Happy Little Thoughts newsletter, you know that Tank has been having a problem that could become quite serious, our truck died and needed a new engine, and this weekend my car had to have an expensive repair. Oh, and the reason this post is going up after 7 p.m.? My laptop keeps crashing every time I type a few letters into my word processing program.

I have been trying (oh, how I've been trying) to allow simple pleasures and everyday adventures to shore up my happiness during these difficult times. What has helped most is knowing that these frustrations have a shelf life. The vehicles will, eventually, both be fixed. Tank has been improving and seems out of danger. Some personal stuff will also eventually resolve. What I need to do is pay attention, be present, and act with maturity. I’m doing my best. 

And that's not a bad lesson to learn, no matter what your age: do your best. Assume everyone else is doing the same. And, as someone once said,  Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

What is one of the most valuable things you've learned in your years of living?



Problems

Summer Rerun--Attention: Your Peppers Are Shriveled

July 21, 2014

Note: I'm taking a more relaxed approach to blogging this summer, so occasionally I'm going to rerun a previous post. I hope you enjoy this one, from 2010. 

This is what happens when 95 degrees meets inattentive gardener:


Here’s the same plant after a drink of water and a good night’s rest:


This little ornamental pepper is amazingly resilient—I’m sorry to say this is not the first time she’s wilted in the heat. Still, she survives, even after freezing temperatures in the winter and practically dying of thirst in the summer.

If you look closely, you’ll see a few peppers still a bit wizened from their lack of water. Just like the peppers, we often wear the battle scars of what we’ve been through—in our faces, in our eyes, in our hearts. Yet still we come back for more, still we reach upwards toward the light—even though sometimes that light scorches us. For us, a drink of water and a good night’s sleep may be only the beginning of what we need to recover. We may need a box of assorted chocolates, an hour of solitude, a friend’s ear, or even professional help.

If you’re struggling right now, wilting in the sun, reflect on what you really need to get through today, and the day after, and the day after that. Be an attentive gardener—don’t wait until your leaves are drooping and your peppers are shriveled before you give yourself that cool drink of water that makes all the difference. I promise you’ll feel better in the morning.

Happiness

RX for Troubled Times

March 21, 2011

There’s no question that world events right now are as troubling as they’ve ever been in my adult life, barring perhaps the events of 9/11. I've been feeling frivolous to be writing a blog about “catching happiness” when it seems that all around me what people are really catching is misery. Then I remember the words I wrote in my “About Me” introduction: “I want this blog to be an exploration of simple pleasures, a place to go to hear about ordinary dreams and everyday adventures, and about all things positive that will inspire, encourage or even make us laugh. Heaven knows we need an antidote to all the bad news out there.”

I don’t believe my path and purpose in life is to “save the world.” What I can do is try to make life a little nicer for myself and those around me. Really, that’s all anyone can do, isn’t it? So here’s my very simple prescription for catching happiness, even in troubled times.

Be good to yourself. Be gentle and kind in your thoughts and expectations of yourself. When you’re hurting—afraid, worried, anxious, overwhelmed—ask yourself, “What would make me feel better right now? Ask this question several times until you arrive at one thing you can do right now that will really help. Sometimes it will be doing something active—once, unbelievably for me, it was cleaning my office. Sometimes it will be pampering, like taking a hot bath or a nap. Maybe it will be a brisk walk or some yoga poses. Maybe it will be a delicious meal with some good wine, or simply sitting outside and listening to the birds singing. Once you know what that one thing is, do it.

Coffee and beignets make me feel better
You can also be good to yourself by paying special attention to the details of your day-to-day life. Choose the pretty pocket notebook rather than the plain one. Eat lunch on real dishes rather than paper plates. Wear perfume every day, not just on special occasions. Buy the fresh flowers, replace the tatty underwear, make sure you have scissors in every room that needs them… If at all possible, deal with the things that constantly irritate you, and make the items you work with and around every day things that make you happy.

Which notebook should I choose?
Be good to others. While your heart aches for the people of Japan, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain (and the list could go on), chances are all you can do for them is to send up a prayer and maybe make a monetary donation. You can, however, be good to someone closer to home. You can volunteer your time in any number of ways locally, of course, but you can also make your family’s favorite meal, compliment the cashier at the supermarket, hug your child, or send a friend a card or gift for no reason. A nation, or even better, a world, filled with people trying to be good to one another—wouldn’t that be awesome?

Be kind in your thoughts about others, too. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Yes, there are some truly horrible people in the world, but most of us are muddling along, making mistakes, but doing the best we can.

Times like these make us grateful for what most of us have (a comfortable place to live and enough to eat) and what we don’t have (a nuclear reactor melting down or a government shooting at us). Our irritations and problems still exist, but seem less troublesome in comparison. Instead of feeling sad and overwhelmed, be good to yourself. Be good to others. And we’ll get through this, too.

When in doubt, curl up in a blanket
What small daily details can you tweak to lift your spirits? How can you do the same for others?

Imperfections

Future Imperfect

January 07, 2011

Reading this post reminded me of a concept I’ve heard about that comes from Japanese culture: Wabi-Sabi. To sum it up in a rather general way, wabi-sabi is the art of finding and honoring beauty in the imperfect.

Now this is a concept I can get behind! I love the look of old and imperfect things. I buy distressed furniture, partly because we tend to distress things ourselves even if they don’t come that way, but also because it appeals to me. I find old pieces with a few battle scars much more appealing than something brand new and sleekly perfect. However, wabi-sabi is more than a design aesthetic. It’s a whole outlook on life, an outlook that “[acknowledges] three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect,” (Richard R. Powell, Wabi Sabi Simple).

Wabi-sabi doesn’t just put up with imperfection—it embraces it. That’s a good thing for all of us. I’m guessing you’re not perfect—I know I’m not. When I find myself bogged down in the same old issues, now I see I need to go beyond accepting that I’m imperfect all the way to loving my imperfections. This really goes against the grain for those of us in a culture that believes all personal faults should be eradicated immediately, if not sooner.

Perfect doesn’t exist. Imperfect—with all its glorious faults and detours and mistakes-that-turn-into-blessings—does. So today, let go of one thing you’re still a perfectionist about. Examine and embrace the flaws you see. Let the beauty of wabi-sabi wash over your life.

To learn more about wabi-sabi, go here.

Everyday adventures

When Things Go Wrong

September 17, 2010

Last summer, my friend Kerri introduced me to a song called “What About Everything?” by Carbon Leaf, and I can’t get it out of my head. (It’s a great song to sing along with in the car.) I love the progression of thoughts the singer goes through, and how he finally comes to the conclusion, “I am not in need.”

That song ran through my head when I waited at the mechanic for my car’s AC to be fixed for the second time in three months. (Here in FL, working AC is second in importance only to football.) It ran through my head when I had to drive 20 minutes back into town because I left my purse in art class. (Don’t ask me how.)

Sure, annoyances and problems matter. My relatively minor problems make me uncomfortable, and they even hurt sometimes. (See: Helmet Required.) But I always come back to that line in the song. “I am not in need.”

As Sarah Vowell writes in The Partly Cloudy Patriot:“….my motto in any situation is ‘It Could Be Worse.’ It could be worse is how I meet every setback. Though nothing all that bad has ever happened to me, every time I’ve had my heart broken or gotten fired or watched an audience member at one of my readings have a seizure as I stand at the podium trying not to cry, I remind myself that it could be worse. In my self-help universe, when things go wrong I whisper mantras to myself, mantras like ‘Andersonville’ or ‘Texas School Book Depository.’ ‘Andersonville’ is a code word for ‘You could be one of the prisoners of war dying of disease and malnutrition in the worst Confederate prison, so just calm down about the movie you wanted to go to being sold out.’ ‘Texas School Book Depository’ means that having the delivery guy forget the guacamole isn’t nearly as bad as being assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald as the blood from your head stains your wife’s pink suit.”

Thank you for your concern and good wishes following my fall off Tank—I really, really appreciate them, and I’m healing up nicely. I’m so grateful it wasn’t worse, and that I had the resources to get treatment for the injury. (I had a massage today...it was almost worth falling off the horse…) Despite this little hiccup in my smoothly-running life, things are about back to normal.

I am not in need.

Problems

Attention: Your Peppers Are Shriveled

July 23, 2010

This is what happens when 95 degrees meets inattentive gardener:


Here’s the same plant after a drink of water and a good night’s rest:


This little ornamental pepper is amazingly resilient—I’m sorry to say this is not the first time she’s wilted in the heat. Still, she survives, even after freezing temperatures in the winter and practically dying of thirst in the summer.

If you look closely, you’ll see a few peppers still a bit wizened from their lack of water. Just like the peppers, we often wear the battle scars of what we’ve been through—in our faces, in our eyes, in our hearts. Yet still we come back for more, still we reach upwards toward the light—even though sometimes that light scorches us. For us, a drink of water and a good night’s sleep may be only the beginning of what we need to recover. We may need a box of assorted chocolates, an hour of solitude, a friend’s ear, or even professional help.

If you’re struggling right now, wilting in the sun, reflect on what you really need to get through today, and the day after, and the day after that. Be an attentive gardener—don’t wait until your leaves are drooping and your peppers are shriveled before you give yourself that cool drink of water that makes all the difference. I promise you’ll feel better in the morning.

Happiness

Just One of Those Weeks

May 29, 2010

This past week wasn’t one of our best. My son had a minor bike accident—one of the pedals broke off while he was riding and he smashed his face on the handlebars. He’s fine now, though at first he looked like he’d gone a few rounds in the boxing ring. I broke a tooth and when the dentist examined me, he informed me that I need not one but two crowns because the tooth behind the broken one also had a crack in it. And no, before you ask, I do not open beer bottles with my teeth. The modem for our internet connection self-destructed and we’ve been reduced to one working computer until the new modem arrives. We’re all fighting over that one computer—which happens to be mine, so shouldn’t I get precedence?—and it can get pretty ugly. You’ve already read my rant about daily chores, and you know, this blog is all about catching HAPPINESS for Pete’s sake. What is the deal?

After rereading Mr. Franklin’s quote at left, I reminded myself that I don’t have the right to have everything always go my way, or even to be happy. I just have the right to pursue happiness. So in the spirit of that pursuit, here are just a few little things that have made me smile this week, despite the things that have gone wrong:


Discovering a new shoot on the bougainvillea I thought had been killed by the freezes.








Harvesting cherry tomatoes from my own plant.





Signing up for a new art class.

Allowing my 15-year-old to drive home from the orthodontist and realizing that his driving is getting better. (Yes, I was smiling, not grimacing.)

Finding a dress for a wedding we were to attend—the first one I tried on! And it was on sale!

Attending that wedding and watching two 70+-year-olds find happiness and someone to share their lives with while both their families rejoiced.

Watching my dog lie in the grass in the sun.


More importantly, little by little I’m learning that happiness doesn’t only depend on external factors. My attitudes and actions influence my state of mind much more than external factors do. My son could have been much more severely injured. I could have required a root canal rather than a crown. Things could be much worse—and I’m grateful that they aren’t, and that we have the resources to cope with these little downs. Being grateful that things aren’t worse, searching for things that give me enjoyment, and choosing to focus on the positive rather than the negative have gotten me through this week in a relatively happy frame of mind.

How about you? How do you cope when things go wrong? I’d love to hear any suggestions you have. Not that I expect anything else to go wrong anytime soon.  Right?!

Boredom

I Don't Wanna!

May 25, 2010

Do you ever get tired of the dailiness of your daily chores? I’ve been going through a stretch where I am absolutely sick of cooking. I don’t want to make dinner ever again.

I don’t wanna!

Fortunately, I have a wonderful husband who often helps with dinner and has offered to take over cooking for a week at a time. (I just might take him up on that.) The problem is, it’s more than that. I also don’t wanna clean the bathrooms or vacuum or wash the dishes. And let us not even speak of the laundry. Obviously, I was supposed to be born into a life of leisure, and something has gone terribly wrong.

I know I should be able to enjoy the Zen of the sudsy dishwater or the aesthetic beauty of the chopped tomatoes and basil in the salad. But, frankly, I’m just tired of it. It never ends! Sure, I can clean the toilet. Then it will get dirty again. And the family will get hungry and require dinner. Again.

Since I can’t afford to hire a chef or a maid, I have to trick and bribe and reward myself into keeping up with my household responsibilities when I feel like this. I use the kitchen timer. I promise myself I only have to clean while the commercials are on during a favorite TV show. I reward myself with a half hour of reading for pleasure if I empty the dishwasher and refill it. I even—gasp—skip doing a chore at its appointed time. Guess what? The world doesn’t end. The house remains standing, and though it occasionally looks a little disheveled, the health inspector has not yet condemned it.

This ennui tells me something: I need a break. I need a day or two where I don’t have to do chores and errands and cooking. A day or two in which to listen to myself and see if there is anything I could simplify or stop doing. Does my schedule need rearranging? Is there something I should start doing that would feed my soul? I’m learning not to be so hard on myself when I’m feeling a little less than enthusiastic about household chores.

Soon enough I’ll feel better, and I’ll go back to cooking and cleaning with a better attitude. Until then, does anybody have the phone number for the pizza delivery place?

Just a little reminder

Moving On

Good Riddance Day

December 29, 2009

On the Today show this morning, I learned that yesterday was the third annual Good Riddance Day, organized by the Times Square Alliance in New York City. From 12 to 1 p.m. a large industrial shredder was set up and more than 200 New Yorkers and tourists participated, according to www.nypost.com. A dumpster and a sledgehammer were also provided for unshreddable items.

What a great idea! Take your bad memories, your troubles and difficulties, the sadnesses and frustrations of 2009 and just…annihilate them.

But what about those of us who don’t live in New York? (For that matter, what about those of us who heard about Good Riddance Day the day AFTER it occurred?) Have your own Good Riddance Day right where you live. If there’s something from 2009 you’d like to put behind you, find a picture of it or write it down and SHRED it. Or tear it into itty bitty pieces by hand. Or burn it (safely, of course).

Sometimes it’s good to have a ceremony to rid ourselves of unwanted baggage. Sometimes we can’t move forward because our past mistakes, or the wrongs done to us, are clinging to our ankles like lead weights. Sometimes we need to do a little personal shredding in order to move on with life.

I plan to make a little visit to my shredder tonight. How about you?