My favorite dog

If you subscribe to the Happy Little Thoughts newsletter (and if you don’t, why not?! It’s free, contains material not found elsewhere on Catching Happiness, and I promise I don’t share your email with anyone else! Click here if you want to subscribe.), you’re already hearing about some of my favorites, otherwise known as Happy Little Things.

But you know, once a month isn’t enough for sharing good things. If there was such a thing as a happy IV, we need it now. So from time to time, I’m going to start posting “Friday Favorites”—specific simple pleasures and happy little things that are helping me to survive what passes for life in The Year That Must Not Be Named (2020).

So here goes. Here’s the first edition of Friday Favorites—a few of the happy little things that are boosting my mood right now. Get your thinking caps on, because there will be a homework assignment at the end of this post!

The Goes Wrong Show. My husband and I laughed so hard we cried. My favorite episode was “The Lodge.” Stream on Amazon Prime (no affiliation). 

As You Wish—Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes, on audio book (borrowed from my library). Though I don’t often listen to audio books, I heard this one was a fun listen and The Princess Bride is one of my favorite movies. Elwes reads it himself, and a few of the other cast members (as well as director Rob Reiner) join in. 

Planting herb seeds. I prefer gardening in Florida in the fall/winter—it’s cooler and less buggy. I started by planting parsley, basil, thyme, cilantro, and lavender—herbs that technically should grow for me this time of year. If my seeds don’t sprout and thrive (which past experience has shown me is likely—but I keep trying), I’ll go to a local nursery for plants. I WILL have an herb garden, one way or another. (Do you hear me, seeds?)

Playoff baseball. First, the Tampa Bay Lightning won the Stanley Cup. Now the Tampa Bay Rays are one game away from going to the World Series.

A real, not in-memory-only, Field Trip Friday. Masked up, I’m going on an outing with a friend to a craft store. I don’t need anything—except inspiration.

Now it’s your turn. What book knocked your socks off, what podcast inspires or entertains you, what movie or TV show helps you escape from your worries? Are you baking something delicious? Painting or quilting or drinking pumpkin spice lattes?  Please (I beg you!) share a simple pleasure, everyday adventure, or happy little thing with us in the comments. If you’re reading this post in your email, hit reply to share a favorite or two. If I get enough responses, I’ll do a round up post of everybody’s favorites. We need all the happy we can get.

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

“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

“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?

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

Photo by Alex Geerts on Unsplash

Well, we made it through September. Fall is sort of here. This weekend I expect to be sweeping off our lanai and helping my husband in the yard. I’m doing my best to feel optimistic (see below) in October, and as I mentioned in September’s Happy Little Thoughts newsletter, I’ll also be looking for the small positive actions that can boost my mood and energy. (Didn’t get the newsletter? Click here to subscribe.)

If you have some extra time and feel like reading something inspiring, here are a few links I’ve found interesting and encouraging recently:

Access the (free and printable) Action for Happiness “Optimistic October” calendar here. Today’s action is: “Look for reasons to be hopeful even in difficult times.”

The Positive Lexicography Project combines two things I love: happiness and words. Read more about it in “The Glossary of Happiness.”

I miss traveling a lot—I haven’t felt it was safe or appropriate even to visit my mom(s) in California, or take a road trip with my friend Kerri. In “How to Take a Vacation Without Leaving Home,” Ingrid Fetell Lee offers a few suggestions for adding a little adventure to your staycation.

After 10 years of writing a health and well-being column for The Guardian, Oliver Burkeman has learned a few things about happiness. In “Oliver Burkeman’s last column: the eight secrets to a (fairly) fulfilledlife,” he shares some of them. For example: “There will always be too much to do—and this realisation is liberating. Today more than ever, there’s just no reason to assume any fit between the demands on your time—a l the things you would like to do, or feel you ought to do—and the amount of time available. Thanks to capitalism, technology and human ambition, these demands keep increasing, while your capacities remain largely fixed. It follows that the attempt to “get on top of everything” is doomed. (Indeed, it’s worse than that – the more tasks you get done, the more you’ll generate.)”

There’s nothing notably new in the advice found in “10 Waysto Find Stillness in Turbulent Times,”—just good, solid advice for quieting an anxious mind.

And speaking of an anxious mind, according to researchers, elevated stress and worry can actually change brain chemistry. “Coronavirus:the pandemic is changing our brains—here are the remedies” offers some suggestions for coping.

That’s all for now. I’m off to take the dog for a walk before it gets too hot (it’s cooler, but not cool). Have a great weekend!

Photo by Marko Blažević on Unsplash

Introduction by Ted Kooser: Tolstoy said, “Nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.” I found this poem by Dorianne Laux in Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems, published by Grayson Books of West Hartford, CT. The poet, whose most recent book of poetry is Only As The Day Is Long, lives in Maine.

For the Sake of Strangers

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.

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

“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.”

Photo by Vicko Mozara on Unsplash

• 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

• 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

Photo by frank mckenna on Unsplash

In the Fourth of July Parade