“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not.
Remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
—Epicurus
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| Photo by Andres F. Uran on Unsplash |
“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.”
—Carl Jung
“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes
are endless.”
—Mother Teresa
Today is World Kindness Day, and I can’t think of a time when we needed kindness more. World Kindness Day encourages groups and individuals to go out of their way to be kind to others, by pledging to do at least one intentional act of kindness to benefit someone else. It’s also a day to celebrate and encourage the acts of kindness others are already doing, including simply saying “thank you” to those around you.
If you want to join in, see “7 Ways to Make Kindness the Norm in Your Daily Life” (super simple suggestions), or click here for information on World Kindness Day and some additional simple suggestions for participating. (One of the sweetest examples I read about is to wear a cardigan today in honor of Mr. Rogers!)
As my first act of kindness today, I want to thank YOU for reading Catching Happiness, and for your support, kind comments, and friendship. I know how busy life can be, and it means a lot to me that you would spend a few minutes of your precious time reading my words and sharing your thoughts.
Happy
World Kindness Day!
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| Photo by Kawin Harasai on Unsplash |
“To wish happiness for others, even for those who want to do
us harm, is the source of consummate happiness.”
—Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
“As a
word and a strategy, resilience honors the unromantic reality of who we are and
how we are, and so becomes a refreshingly practical compass for the systems and
societies we can craft. It’s a shift from wish-based optimism to reality-based
hope. It is akin to meaningful, sustained happiness—not dependent on a state of
perfection or permanent satisfaction, not an emotional response to
circumstances of the moment, but a way of being that can meet the range of
emotions and experiences, light and dark, that add up to a life. Resilience is
at once proactive, pragmatic, and humble. It knows it needs others. It doesn’t
overcome failure so much as transmute it, integrating it into the reality that
evolves.”
—Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise: An Inquiry Into the Mystery and Art of Living
I’ve been in a very dark place recently. Even though I avoid click bait and the most outrageous headlines, it’s impossible not to see how much suffering and hardship people are experiencing right now. I’ve been going about my day-to-day life feeling like an elephant is sitting on my head.
In times like these, when I finally pull myself off the floor and hunt for ways to feel better, I often turn to the written word. I have books with tape flags, a stack of 3 x 5 cards inscribed with favorite quotes, and if that’s not enough, I also have the search engines of Internet at my fingertips. Last week, I turned to them all.
Here are a few encouraging words/thoughts/mantras that have been helping me hold on, followed by a few of my own thoughts. I hope you find them encouraging, too. Please feel free to forward and share these with others if you feel they could help.
“If there is a solution to the problem, there is no need to worry. If there is no solution, there is no sense worrying, either.” The Dalai Lama
I’m prone to worry even in the best of times. These words remind me that worrying is a useless exercise. It doesn’t—cannot—solve any problem and only serves to exhaust me mentally and emotionally.
“Remember that things can change for the better.” Action for Happiness Optimistic October 2020 calendar
Huh. Sometimes change is for the better. Sometimes I forget that.
“The world is broken. It was broken long before I arrived and will continue to be so long after I’m gone. The only thing I can do is control how bright my own light shines.” A friend
One bad day, I was sharing how emotionally overwhelmed and
sad I was feeling with a close friend. These words of her response stood out
for me and comforted me. I’m not in charge of the world (thank goodness) but I
am in charge of myself.
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
Marcus Aurelius
So true. It’s not the thing happening causing me pain, it’s my response. Too often my response is worry/anxiety/negativity.
“We tend to look for the whys when bad things happen—why did this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this? But if we can reframe it, we can take back the power—How can I make this better? How is this making me stronger? The answers don’t come immediately, but they will come when you’re ready to hear them.” Susannah Conway
OK, maybe I’m ready to hear them?
Two quotes from Pema Chodron:
“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”
Things are certainly falling apart right now. I will try to allow all this to happen, and to remember to leave room for joy also.
“Times are difficult globally; awakening is no longer a luxury or an ideal. It’s becoming critical. We don’t need to add more depression, more discouragement, or more anger to what’s already here. It’s becoming essential that we learn how to relate sanely with difficult times. The earth seems to be beseeching us to connect with joy and discover our innermost essence. This is the best way that we can benefit others.”
My new goal: “relate sanely with difficult times.”
And lastly, a wish I saw recently on a bumper sticker:
“I hope something good happens to you today.”
I really DO hope something good happens for you today.
What are some encouraging words that are helping you?
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| Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash |
“I am made for autumn. Summer and I have a fickle relationship, but everything about autumn is perfect to me. Wooly jumpers, Wellington boots, scarves, thin first, then thick, socks. The low slanting light, the crisp mornings, the chill in my fingers, those last warm sunny days before the rain and the wind. Her moody hues and subdued palette punctuated every now and again by a brilliant orange, scarlet or copper goodbye. She is my true love.”
—Alys Fowler
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| Photo by Pickawood on Unsplash |
“The biggest lies I tell myself are ‘It will just take a minute,” and “I’ll remember that.’
“It’s rare that anything worth doing lasts ‘just a minute’ or that we’ll be finished ‘in a sec’ or that ‘a quick look’ will be enough. We have to break away, turn off, shut down and come back.
“Break away. The work, the dishes, the decluttering,
the worries, the to-do lists … they can wait.”
—Courtney Carver
What will you break away from today? What will you do instead?
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| Eugene Delacroix |
“How are you? Are you ruling your imagination? That is the
important thing: we are happy when we believe ourselves to be so, and if our
minds are set on the opposite extreme all the diversions in the world will not
give us any pleasure.”
—Eugene Delacroix, in an 1858 letter to Mme de Forget,
The Journal of Eugene Delacroix
“I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in
themselves. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given
me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and
Truth.”
—Albert Einstein
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| Photo by David Brooke Martin on Unsplash |
“If
our happiness is dependent on anything that’s transitory, we must always search
for new things to keep us happy.
“For
all of us, there’s another form of happiness that isn’t transitory: it is
instead sustaining and renewing. It’s the happiness we find when we’re aligned
with whatever it is in life that we find personally fulfilling and meaningful.
Although other people, possessions, or thoughts can be part of it they are
never the origin of this deeper form of internal happiness. Internally rooted
happiness simply is.”
—Lynn Ginsburg and Mary Taylor, What Are You Hungry For?
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| Photo by Carolyn V on Unsplash |
“Happiness is a state of activity.
“This is a tremendously powerful thought. Thinking of happiness as something we do, as something we actively participate in creating, rather than something we simply feel, can change the way we approach our happiness and our lives.
“This is another big perception shift; happiness is absolutely a feeling and a state of well-being, but the key to happiness is understanding that it is created through action. And learning the skill of happiness helps us to consistently and naturally take the actions to shape and live our happiest, most dynamic life.”—Kristi Ling, Operation Happiness
“I
don’t know why it’s so hard to remember that our fears rarely materialize, and
that in bracing ourselves for the impact, we create the impact. If only
we could let go and soften our bodies, soften our minds, soften our expectations,
whatever happens would be felt as a nudge rather than a crash.”
—Susannah
Conway, This I Know: Notes on Unraveling the Heart
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| Photo by Hayley Maxwell on Unsplash |
“Sometimes, life doesn’t just throw you lemons, it
throws you grenades. Personal struggles, transition, illness, loss of loved
ones—these are all unavoidable events that every single one of us will
experience at some point on our journey. This fact can’t be ignored (as nice as it is to not think about it). Happy people aren’t exempt from hard times;
they’re just armed with the foundation, outlook, and effective tools to help
them navigate, survive, and heal successfully, as well as create the best
possible outcomes.”
—Kristi Ling, Operation Happiness
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| Photo by Nathan Lemon on Unsplash |
“….we often serve others best simply by honoring
what we care about most. ‘To find our calling,’ wrote theologian Frederick
Buechner, ‘is to find the intersection between our own deep gladness and the
world’s deep hunger.’”
–Sarah Juniper Rabkin, What I Learned at
Bug Camp
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| Photo by Javardh on Unsplash |
“Perhaps middle age is, or should be, a period of
shedding shells; the shell of ambition, the shell of material accumulations and
possessions, the shell of the ego. Perhaps one can shed at this stage in life
as one sheds in beach-living; one’s pride, one’s false ambitions, one’s mask,
one’s armor. Was that armor not put on to protect one from the competitive
world? If one ceases to compete, does one not need it? Perhaps one can at last
in middle age, if not earlier, be completely oneself. And what a liberation
that would be!”
—Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift From the Sea
Free is one of my words of the year. So far, 2020 has
been stripping away my “shells.” I’m feeling raw, but this quote from Anne Morrow
Lindbergh’s beautiful Gift From the Sea is encouraging me to see the
freedom that can follow that process.
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| Photo by Jakob Søby on Unsplash |
“It’s exhilarating to be alive in a time of
awakening consciousness; it can also be confusing, disorienting, and painful.”
—Adrienne
Rich
Emotions are running high, and we may all need to
take some time to check in with our feelings. If it helps, write out your thoughts, or talk to a trusted confidante. My journal is getting a workout
these days. The world is frightening and sorrowful right now—but I truly believe good will come out of all the turmoil. Wishing you a healthy, peaceful, and happy weekend!
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| Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash |
“Wealth is
the power to choose.
Financial
wealth is the power to choose how to spend money.
Social
wealth is the power to choose who to hang out with.
Time wealth
is the power to choose how to spend your day.
Mental wealth is the power to choose how to spend your
attention.”
—James Clear
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| Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash |
“Spring comes on its own schedule, but we can also participate in its regeneration. We can plant seeds and cut flowers, we lighten our wardrobes and make time to be outdoors. What spring reminds me is that we don’t just have to wait for things to begin again. Through small actions, we create our own renewal.”
—Ingrid Fetell Lee, “How to Feel Like Things Are Moving When Life Is On Pause”
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| Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash |
“One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the
known coming to an end.”
—Krishnamurti
