Action for Happiness

If It's Friday, It Must Be Time for Link Love

March 23, 2018

I don’t know about you, but I’m glad it’s Friday. I have some writing to do today, and then my husband and I are going to the movies tonight! And then…ah, the weekend. I hope you have some fun weekend plans in store. And if you have a few spare minutes, here are some links to love. Enjoy!

Just because it’s almost the end of March (already?) doesn’t mean we can’t use the prompts on Action for Happiness’ Mindful March calendar. So many great and simple ways to become more aware of the happiness all around us.

I know this isn’t in the usual Catching Happiness wheelhouse, but Shakespeare’s Top 50 Insults made me smile. (“Thine face is not worth sunburning”).  Be sure to scroll to the bottom for the Shakespeare Insult Generator. (If you don’t, you’re a spleeny, onion-eyed foot-licker!)

I adore solitude. If you do, too, you’ll probably recognize these “23 Things Only People Who Love Spending Time Alone Will Understand.” So many of these resonated with me.

If you’re in the market for an everyday adventure, consider trying something for the first time. Dani DiPirro at Postively Present has a list of some possibilities here. Pick something and do it!

Speaking of adventure, my friend Laure Ferlita just announced the possibility of an art retreat in the south of France, in addition to her already-scheduled Blue Walk tour in Paris. This sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for any artists out there.

Gretchen Rubin’s “My Best Advice for Graduates: 12 Tips for a Happy Life” is worth reading, even if your own graduation, like mine, is far in the past.

Cats and yoga. Namaste.


Have a happy weekend!


Happiness

International Day of Happiness Is Almost Here!

March 19, 2018


Since 2009, I’ve been writing about happiness and related concepts—and even now I sometimes struggle with the feeling that happiness is frivolous—a topic that doesn’t really matter in the face of the real and pressing problems of the world. I’ve even wondered if it’s OK to be happy.

But happiness is only frivolous if you define it as the fleeting feeling you have when you’re only pursuing your own pleasure and everything is going your way. True happiness is more than that—it’s a lasting feeling of well-being. What could be more important?

Happiness is so important that on March 20 in 2013, the United Nations declared the first International Day of Happiness “as a way to recognise the importance of happiness in the lives of people around the world.” As we observe it each year, it serves as a reminder that happiness is important on a global level. 

On a personal level, I think we should each be mindful of what makes us truly, deeply happy. Then we should go about filling our lives with things that matter in the long-term, not futile pursuits and thoughtless busy-ness. When we are happy, we make others happy. We operate from a place of abundance rather than lack, opening our hands to let happiness flow to others rather than clutching it desperately for ourselves.

So today, tomorrow, and every day, I wish for you, and for myself, a life of meaningful, deep happiness and true well-being.

How will you celebrate the International Day of Happiness?

For more information:

The latest World Happiness Report ranks 156 countries by their happiness levels. The United States dropped four places to 18th, and Canada was 7th. (Finland ranked number one.) 

Action for Happiness

Guidebook for happier living

Get Your Happy On--Celebrate International Day of Happiness

Choose Happiness, Spread Happiness

Kristen Ulmer

Let Them Be

March 16, 2018

Photo by zhang kaiyv on Unsplash

“Honor your moods not by forcing a different reality, but by just letting them be. It’s very Zen. When you’re sad, just be sad. When you’re afraid, just be afraid. When you’re overwhelmed, just be overwhelmed. When you’re unfocused, can you find a way to let it be and simply enjoy that state?

“This is how—like water through a hose—these states will come into, through, and out of your life. Do this and that reality will always run its course, and there will be space right behind it for something else to enter.”
—Kristen Ulmer, quoted in Tribe of Mentors


Life lessons from the barn

Life Lessons From the Barn--Relax Your Mind

March 12, 2018


I rode Tank on Saturday while a lesson was taking place, and I heard the trainer call out one of my favorite expressions to one of the students: “Relax your mind.”

I’ve heard her use this phrase often, usually when a student is stretching outside her comfort zone and becoming uptight about it. In riding, if you’re anxious about taking a jump, for example, your horse will pick up on it and might refuse the jump, or spook at it. After all, if you’re worried about it, there must be something to worry about…

So much of horseback riding—and life—depends on our mental states. Our anxiety levels, expectations, intentions, our ability to let go of fears and worries. It’s all too easy to get worked up about specific situations, or even life in general, until our minds resemble spinning hamster wheels of thoughts (I’m especially prone to this at around 3:15 a.m.).

The antidote?

Relax your mind.

It’s a good skill to learn, and one that I’m still working on. Here’s what I do when I remember to relax my mind:

  • Stop holding my breath and start taking deep, slow breaths. This sends a calming message to my nervous system.

  • Unclench my muscles, releasing physical tension.

  • Open my eyes, ears, heart, and mind to the entire situation—i.e., stop staring intently at whatever I’m worried about, expecting it to blow up in my face.

When I’m able to relax my mind, the outcome is always better, even if it’s not ideal. 

How would you follow the direction to “relax your mind”?

Backyards

Feathered Friday--Birds at the Backyard Feeder

March 09, 2018

“I don’t ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful.”
—Pete Hamill

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the backyard with you-know-who lately. While I supervise playtime (she eats, or at least chews, everything and we’ve already been to the vet once because she ate something she shouldn’t have), I have the chance to slow down, be quiet, and observe. Our yard is full of birds, some of which I’ve never noticed before. The simple pleasure of observing the birds coming and going has made my backyard jaunts happier. Today I thought I’d share a few of our pretty feathered visitors:


Rufous-sided towhee 


Red-bellied woodpecker

Catbird

Mr. Cardinal

Ruby-throated hummingbird

Bonus Butterfly:

Zebra longwing
What’s making you happy today?

Danielle LaPorte

Insanity and the March Rebellion

March 05, 2018

Photo courtesy Ryan McQuire, Gratisography.com

You’ve probably heard this definition of insanity before: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Well, call me insane.

For more than a year, I’ve been creating monthly, quarterly, and yearly plans, setting goals for each month, religiously writing down and crossing off tasks and to-dos in an effort to build my freelance writing business, strengthen my health, maintain our home, keep in better touch with my friends and family, improve my horsemanship, sketch more, and so on. I want to experience all the simple pleasures and everyday adventures I can—I don’t want to waste any precious time, or look back and wonder what I did with my life. My lists usually help me stay focused and remind me that I have a choice about how I spend my time.

Until they don’t.

Until I reach overload, and realize I’m moving many of the same items from list to list, week to week, month to month, without doing them. Expecting that “this month it will be different.” (See, insanity.) Even the ones I was nailing were beginning to bug me.

Danielle LaPorte’s words in White Hot Truth sounded eerily applicable: “Contemporary women revere their [To-Do] lists like Moses loved his stone tablets. They are directions to the Promised Land. The thrill of crossing something off: check, check, and check. Mmmmm, feels so good. So good that you might write stuff down that you’ve already done just so you can cross it off (yep, you got it bad). Like any addiction, the to-do list is destined to lose its thrill when it rules us….
“My list started feeling like a row of soldiers shouting at me…. Once I started paying attention, that background noise became awfully loud. Its refrain, on repeat: I sort of suck because I should…” 

Well then.

So last week when I hauled out my master list for the year, my goals workbook, February to-do list, and prepared to write out March’s list of goals I hit a brick wall.

Nope. I can’t do it this way anymore, at least for now. I’m sick of copying the same-old, same-old goals and tasks from month to month. Even the ones that consistently get done every month. It’s only March and I already feel burdened and rebellious. I do not want to feel burdened and rebellious. I write about happiness, fercryinoutloud.

The Rebellion caused me to look at my proposed goals and decide 1) whether I still wanted to do them, and 2) whether I could realistically do them this month given the other responsibilities on my plate (I’m looking at you, Luna). I hate admitting this, but I do not have the physical or mental energy to do the number of things I want to do at any one time. And I can’t always be saying no to the simple pleasures and everyday adventures that give me joy and help me relax in favor of working or “achieving.”

I sat for a few moments reflecting on which of these many (many) items were truly important for me to accomplish (and do well) in the next four weeks. Which ones would I enjoy most—whether because the thing itself was enjoyable or having it checked off the list would make me feel especially relieved and happy.

Instead of copying all of February’s goals to a new file, renaming it, and removing the items that got checked off in February that don’t need to be repeated in March, I started fresh with a blank piece of paper and wrote down just a few things I’d like to do in March. The writing jobs I’m committed to. Puppy obedience classes. Planning and preparing for an April trip to California to see my parents and my friend Kerri. My list was shorter, but more meaningful to me.

I don’t know what March is going to bring. Maybe I won’t even accomplish what’s on my shorter list. But at least for now, I don’t feel quite as insane.

How do you cope when you feel overwhelmed by everything you’d like to do?

Gifts

Honoring the Gift of Life

March 02, 2018

Photo by John Jennings on Unsplash

“Happiness is about understanding that the gift of life should be honored every day by offering your gifts to the world.”
—Mike Maples Jr., quoted in Tribe of Mentors (Tim Ferriss)


Note: Tribe of Mentors is full of great life advice. I’m only about a third of the way through. Expect to see more quotes from the book appear on Catching Happiness.

Everyday adventures

Have You Had an Everyday Adventure Lately?

February 26, 2018


I don’t know about you, but my well of inspiration needs refilling. Maybe you’ve been cooped up all winter, and you’re craving something different, too. Have you had an everyday adventure lately?

There’s nothing wrong with having pleasant comfortable routines—I’m a big fan. But the second half of the Catching Happiness tagline is “everyday adventures.” When pursuing a happy life, everyday adventures are just as important as simple pleasures, but since they require more effort on our part, they sometimes don’t get the attention they should. Having a mini-adventure to look forward to makes it much easier to cope with life’s inevitable boring or difficult stretches.

Everyday adventures don’t have to cost a lot—or anything at all. They’re more a mindset than anything else (being called for jury duty, for example, was an everyday adventure!). Here are a few possibilities:

  • Eat at an ethnic restaurant you’ve never tried before, or cook a meal from a different culture at home
  • Visit a park or botanical garden (weather permitting), or a zoo, aquarium, or museum
  • Watch a foreign film
  • Read a book in translation, or from a culture you’re unfamiliar with
  • Take the long way—or at least a different way—when you drive to work or run errands.
  • Go to the library and browse the books, music, and DVDs—check out something completely new to you.
  • Take an online class.

In addition to being something to look forward to, everyday adventures are often a gift for the remembering self. I love having something to share when someone asks me what I’ve been up to lately, beyond “Um, working and taking care of our house,” that is. I’m not sure yet what my next everyday adventure will be (besides Luna, that is)—but I’m thinking it’s time for some well-filling inspiration.

What will your next everyday adventure be? Please share in the comments!


Dawna Markova

Each in Our Own Rhythm

February 23, 2018

Photo by Iulian Pana on Unsplash

“Most of us and our organizations still follow the old mythology, where we are thought of as perpetual motion machines, working at one speed—fast as can be, productive as possible—like stair-climbers in a gym, up, up, up, asking us to exert more effort but getting nowhere very quickly. Ascent, ascent, higher and higher. Never descent, never darkness or a plateau for regeneration.

“As a consequence, we become imprisoned in our own rigidities. What if, instead, we realized, like Ram Dass, that we go through many incarnations in this one life? What if we realized that instead of ‘things’ getting better and better if we work harder and harder, that, like a seed, we will each in our own rhythm, go through endless cycles of gestation, birth, growth, death, and renewal?”
—Dawna Markova, I Will Not Die an Unlived Life

Einstein

Falling

February 16, 2018

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

Introduction by Ted Kooser: It seems that love poems have a better chance of being passed around from person to person than other poems, and here’s one by Richard M. Berlin, who lives in the Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts, that we’d like to pass along to you.

Einstein’s Happiest Moment

Einstein’s happiest moment
occurred when he realized
a falling man falling
beside a falling apple
could also be described
as an apple and a man at rest
while the world falls around them.

And my happiest moment
occurred when I realized
you were falling for me,
right down to the core, and the rest,
relatively speaking, has flown past
faster than the speed of light.


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 ©2011 by Richard M. Berlin from his most recent book of poems, Secret Wounds, BkMk Press, 2011. Poem reprinted by permission of Richard M. Berlin and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2012 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Goals

Making Success Out of Habits

February 12, 2018

It’s mid-February—do you know where your goals are? Are you still working towards them, or have you become discouraged or distracted? 

The excitement of a new year has worn off by now, and most of us are faced with the reality of ongoing effort, of putting one foot in front of the other. Have we made it easy—or at least easier—to be successful in pursuit of our goals and dreams? Have we put in place habits and routines that support reaching them?

I’ve been thinking about habits and routines a lot lately for two reasons:

First, we now have little Luna to teach and take care of, and as we train her, we try to set her up for success—by walking her often, keeping her contained and under supervision (so she doesn’t get into too much trouble!), and praising her when she does things we like. We have a regular schedule, with feeding times (her favorite), play time in the back yard, short obedience training sessions, time she spends quietly in her dog crate, and plenty of praise, cuddling, and petting. We want to make it easy for her to do right, to reach her goal (which we set for her, because…she’s a DOG) of living happily with humans. Having a set routine not only helps her to learn what to do when and what we expect of her, it helps us shape her behavior.

Second, my own routine has been thrown off by the demands of Luna’s routine! At least for now, I have to create new habits and routines to suit my altered situation. It’s a great exercise in flexibility, which I admit I’m not skilled in.

Whatever your goal is, what habits can you develop that will lead to success? If you want to be an artist, are you sketching, painting, or sculpting every day (or most days)? If you want to write a book, are you sitting down with pen and paper or at your computer and getting the words down? If you want to be healthier, are you taking a daily walk, or eating more vegetables, or drinking a glass of water when you wake up? If you want to read more books, are you turning off the TV or computer and setting aside time to read? These habits, this dailyness, leads you forward toward the inevitable: reaching your goal of a finished sketchbook, a healthier body, or an enviable Books Read list.

So if you want to use habits and routines to reach your goals:

  • Choose a habit—it can be as small as you like, as long as you commit to doing it daily or almost every day.

  • Practice your habit until it becomes a routine. 

  • And when your routine is disrupted (which will happen sooner or later), do what you can to maintain some semblance of habit during the disruption. If this isn’t possible, don’t stress about it—just return to your established routine when you can.


What habits and routines do you find most helpful? What habits and routines do you plan to put in place in order to reach your goals?

Ready for action