Eugene Delacroix

We Are Happy When We Believe Ourselves So

September 04, 2020

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

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein: Happiness Is Not an End in Itself

August 28, 2020


 

“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

August

August Progress

August 21, 2020


August.

Or, as I like to call it, “Ugh-ist.”

Never my favorite month. Except for the birthdays of some loved ones (hi, guys!), August is a month I just try to survive, and I have a long history of complaining about it every year here on Catching Happiness.  See “August Monday Musings,” “Feeling the Heat,” or “In Which I Compare Myself to a Horse.” 

But 2020 has been such a strange year, and while this August is…weird to say the least, for me personally, it’s better than the past few years. Last summer, Tank had a serious hoof condition and was lame, and my husband’s truck engine blew. The year before that I was stressed out about moving Tank to a new barn and our son had been forced to move home temporarily.  And the year before that, Tank had an abscessed tooth that required twice-a-day doctoring. This month, fingers crossed, I’m just dealing with ordinary, day-to-day stuff. For which I am very, very grateful.

Despite my typical lack of energy in August, I have been participating in some challenges this month: the KonMari 8-Week Tidy Challenge and Susannah Conway’s #augustbreak2020 Instagram challenge. I’m doing them both imperfectly, and that’s OK. I’ve probably missed more days than I’ve posted on Instagram, but I’m allowing myself to take it easy. (See my posts here.) I’m a bit bogged down with tidying my books (is anyone surprised?), but I’m making progress. Slow, languid, August progress, but progress nonetheless.

In progress...

Tidied

I feel like that’s a lesson I can learn this year: keep trying. Do it imperfectly, but don’t give up. Soften. 

I hope that you have been able to enjoy some of summer’s simple pleasures, and that you’re experiencing August progress. Tell me about what you’ve been up to in the comments!

Happiness

Finding Deeper Happiness

August 14, 2020

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?


Happiness

Learning the Skill of Happiness

August 07, 2020

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

Fear

Soften Instead

July 31, 2020



“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

Acadia

A Handful of Happy Things (Link Love)

July 24, 2020

I’ve spent more time than usual with my computer over the past months, and I have a handful of happy things to share today. So here goes:

I so much want to travel somewhere, but until I can I’m finding ways to visit places virtually. I’ve watched Will Greene’s time lapse video of Acadia National Park twice already—and I only discovered it yesterday!

A St. Petersburg, Florida couple is turning old newspaper boxes into little free libraries. Especially helpful when libraries are closed or offering limited services.

I’m still pondering these “Six Lessons We Learned During Lockdown That We Can’t Forget After It Ends.”

 “How to Feel Like Things Are Moving When Life Is On Pause”—a few suggestions from the author of Joyful.

Scroll to the bottom of this post by Jen Louden for an explanation of why so many of us feel angry, and an exercise to “Prevent the Blast” when you feel like you’re about to snap.

You NEED to see this Squirrel Ninja Obstacle Course.

I feel like what David of raptitude.com writes in “Most Accomplishments Are Invisible” is even truer in July than it was in December when this post went live:

“So if you feel inadequate whenever some form of the ‘achievement Olympics’ comes up, don’t. We live in a society that assesses people by what their lives produce, not what it takes to live them. Inner work is ignored unless it explains some outer work.
“That says a lot about society, and nothing about you. Rest assured that many millions of us know the immense value of changing your inner world, or even just surviving it, because we’re doing it quietly alongside you. Most of what the human world accomplishes on any given day is very hard to see.”
I wrote this piece for a local county’s visitor’s guide. Click here to see the entire downloadable guide. 
There’s a new baby giraffe at Busch Gardens in Tampa. I love giraffes!



Hope you have a safe and happy weekend!

Happiness

Happy People and Hard Times

July 17, 2020

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

Simple pleasures

Better Late Than Never: The 2020 Summer Fun List

July 13, 2020

Photo by Vicko Mozara on Unsplash

I’ve had a hard time coming up with a Summer Fun List this summer. Nothing much seems like fun, to be honest. It’s doubtful that the places that I would normally seek out for fun this summer will be open, and if they are, I may not feel comfortable visiting them. I won’t be traveling to California to see my mom(s), I won’t be seeing any museum exhibitions or going to any baseball games, and I probably won’t even be wandering the aisles of my local library.

[insert crying emoji]

But summer isn’t cancelled, and neither is fun. Without being too ambitious, I want my remembering self to have something to look back on from this summer, aside from avoiding people and wearing a mask. 

When trying to come up with simple pleasures and everyday adventures to add to my summer fun list, I thought about what types of things would be fun without being too much like chores. I want my fun list to include:

  • Something to look forward to
  • Time to spend doing activities I love
  • Connecting with people I love
  • Doing something new or going someplace new—exploring
  • Eating and/or drinking something seasonal and delicious
  • Enjoying nostalgia
  • Learning something


Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

  • Rewatch some favorite movies, starting with Romancing the Stone
  • Dust off our ice cream maker and make homemade ice cream
  • Institute an occasional aperitif ritual with my husband
  • Return to my sketchbook from France, and do more sketching and art journaling
  • Plan a staycation
  • Watch the sunset on the beach
  • Read from my summer reading list, heavy on books from my own shelves
  • Take part in a travel photo challenge on Facebook (almost complete)
  • Reconnect with friends and family via phone calls, emails, letters


Note: While many people rejoice in the chance to go outside during the summer months, the weather where I live is oppressively hot, humid, and unpleasant, so my list has very few outdoor activities on it. If you live in a kinder climate, Ingrid Fetell Lee’s “How to Find Joy in an Unconventional Summer” contains a multitude of outdoorsy summer fun ideas.

And that’s about all I can think of. And since summer is a typically low energy time for me (and it’s already mid-July!), I’m going to call that good for now.

What about you? Do you have any fun plans this summer? Do share in the comments!

Becoming Our Truest Selves

July 10, 2020

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

“What we perceive as limitations have the potential to become strengths greater than what we had when we were ‘normal’ or unbroken…. This is a philosophy that positions our toughest experiences not as barriers, but as doorways, and may be the key to us becoming our truest selves.”
—Nnedi Okorafor, Broken Places & Outer Spaces

4th of July

Opening the Gate to Joy

July 03, 2020

Photo by frank mckenna on Unsplash

Introduction by Ted Kooser: I was once on Deer Isle, Maine, on the Fourth of July, and attended their own town parade. Deer Isle isn’t big enough to mount a very long parade, so they ran it past us twice, first down to the water, and then back up. And we applauded as much with our second viewing as we did with the first. July 4th parades are a wonderful institution. And here’s a parade for you, by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, who lives in southwest Colorado.  Her newest book, Hush, has just been published by Middle Creek Press.

In the Fourth of July Parade

Right down the middle of main street
the woman with the long red braids
and fairy wings strapped to her back
rode a unicycle more than two times
taller than she was—rode it with balance
and grace, her arms stretched out,
as if swimming through gravity,
as if embracing space—her smile an invitation
to join in her bliss. How simple it is, really,
to make of ourselves a gate that swings open
to the joy that is. How simple, like tossing
candy in a parade, to share the key to the gate.

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. 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 ©2019 by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, “In the Fourth of July Parade,” (2019 ). Poem reprinted by permission of Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. Introduction copyright © 2020 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.

Wishing everyone a safe, healthy, and happy 4th of July!


Caring

How Can We Serve Others?

June 26, 2020

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

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Shedding Shells

June 19, 2020

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.

Adrienne Rich

How Are You Feeling? [Check One]

June 12, 2020

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!

anti-racism

Time to Listen Link Love

June 05, 2020


It feels inappropriate, to say the least, to write about the things I was planning to write about this week—simple pleasures, everyday adventures, my summer fun list and summer reading list. The protests taking place all over the United States, and the world, have filled my mind and heart to bursting, made me appropriately uncomfortable, forcing me to think about concepts and experiences of which I’ve been largely oblivious.

It shouldn’t have taken multiple publicized deaths and nationwide protests to wake me up to what life is like for people of color in this country. It’s time to examine my own biases and beliefs and how they’ve been influenced by the culture I’ve grown up in, as well as educate myself about underlying structural racism.

Since I’m still at the beginning of my learning—where I should be listening rather than speaking—I thought I’d share a few links to material written by people who have eloquently and usefully examined this topic, as well as links to a few anti-racism resources I’m exploring. I hope they prove helpful to you. (And please share in the comments any resources you’ve found helpful.)

Column: George Floyd, Central Park and the familiar terror they inspire. The author writes:
“For those of you who are tired of reading about racism, I’m tired of black and brown bodies being killed by it. I’m tired of watching some white people be more upset by those who are protesting racism as opposed to the racism itself. Being numb is characterizing what happened to Floyd, Cooper, Ahmaud Arbery (who was hunted, shot and killed by two white men while jogging), as unfortunate, disconnected anomalies. Feeling is understanding they are not disconnected at all but, rather, the reason why James Baldwin once said ‘to be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.’”

With Liberty and Justice for All. In this thoughtful piece, Gretchen Rubin shares part of a speech John F. Kennedy gave on June 11, 1963 after the Alabama National Guard had to enforce a court order requiring the desegregation of the University of Alabama. Here’s a part of the quoted speech:

“I hope that every American, regardless of where he lives, will stop and examine his conscience about this and other related incidents. This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened….

“The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated. If an American, because his skin is dark…cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content...[to] stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay? …

“Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise.”

I ask myself, as Rubin does at the end of her post, “How can I, in my own life, live up to my country's highest ideals?”
 
Jen Louden suggests in “White People, Please Don’t Give In to Despair,” that we “Start from wonder and love and steady effort. ‘I wonder how I can learn today? I wonder who I can help today?’ Don’t make it about what you haven’t done cause that’s making it about you. ​Make it about now.” She continues, ‘Stop believing the Hollywood version of change you see in movies. That’s not how real change has ever happened or ever will. Real change happens because of millions of small acts by millions of people. What you do matters! Start today.’”

75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice

How to Support the Struggle Against Police Brutality



Anti-Racist Resource Guide

Books

In Honor of My First Library Book Checkout in More Than Two Months

May 29, 2020

Photo by Jaredd Craig on Unsplash

“Books are more than doctors, of course. Some novels are loving, lifelong companions; some give you a clip around the ear; others are friends who wrap you in warm towels when you’ve got those autumn blues. And some…well, some are pink candy floss that tingles in your brain for three seconds and leaves a blissful void. Like a short, torrid love affair.”
—The Little Paris Bookshop, Nina George
  

As I posted on Instagram yesterday, my local library system is gradually reopening, and one of my library holds came in and I picked it up via appointment. We're not yet allowed inside the library itself, so I’m eagerly awaiting the day I can indulge in the simple pleasure of wandering the stacks, breathing in the smell of books, and choosing a new read at random from the shelves.