I have been writing a story. I don't usually write short stories at all. I just keep going, the characters just keep wanting to take me to new places, and before you know it, my "short" story is 93 pages long and I'd might as well keep going. But this time, I'm trying to control myself. It's for a contest, and there's a word limit. That's good. I don't get so carried away. I just hit "word count" on the tools menu, and that calms me down.
But what the story is about is finding happiness, and the wishes we make (usually daily) for things or events we think will make us happy. What if we suddenly had the means to make three wishes come true? I'm not talking about Aladdin rubbing the lamp and the genie pops out. I'm talking about hard cash, since most of our dreams involve having the money to do something. Buy a house, have a baby, start a business. Even attracting a mate requires some funds, usually. Springing for dinners, paying for leg-waxing, joining dating services, it all adds up.
So, the main character in my story has one night to think of her three wishes, and two are easy. They have to do with career and home. But she is stumped on the third wish, and decides to wing it when her version of the genie gets back to her. But it's the third wish that she later thinks was the key. She wishes to be happy. Now, the money she gets can't buy that, but as I am fond of observing, money can smooth things over, make life a little easier at some points. It also can inspire confidence. The character in my story, because of the money she receives, becomes confident for the first time in her life that she can be happy. And she is. Not because of the money itself, but because of the confidence it gives her.
So what is your million dollar confidence builder? It may BE a million dollars. But it may also be your ability to throw a party, or your needlepoint, or your three- year- old daughter. What you have already wrought in the world. I guess for me it would be my writing that gives me confidence. What I have wrought. And the satisfaction I get from teaching writing. Those things can carry me a long way towards happiness.
Examine what you have wrought, what gives you pleasure and amazement, and ultimately happiness. Write about it, draw about it.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Happiness Challenge
I am freezing. We have reached the time of year when it is almost always unbearably cold in the house (or in the library, where I happen to be at the moment and they still have the air conditioning on!). It is the time when we staunch New Englanders will NOT turn on the heat, until at least October 1st. On September 30th, we can be sitting at our computer with wool socks and fleece jackets on, and the VERY NEXT DAY be lolling about the house in our tank tops, sweating,the heat turned up to 85, so we can make it up to ourselves for freezing our butts the past two weeks. It makes no sense. But every year it's the same.
I love the warmth, the sun. I do not do well when it gets frosty at night and downright hot by noon. I get sick, sometimes to the point I can't force myself out of bed. Then I get cranky, anxious, and very unhappy. I tend to not be able to stop the racing thoughts of betrayals and wrongs and misery of the past. I myself am not a paragon of peaceful, calm happiness. You'll have to look to the Dalai Lama for that. (As an aside, a friend of mine mentioned that she is sick of all the Dalai Lama junk mail she recieves. I keep meaning to ask what that means. I think I would LIKE Dalai Lama junk mail. Just seeing his calm smiling face makes me happy, at least for a moment.)
In any case, I am not always happy and laughing, hand-feeding squirrels as in the photo at the right. I am sad. I am sometimes miserable. I am, in other words, a mere mortal. Especially in the autumn in New England. I do not even enjoy the foliage (or foilage, as some of us say), unless it comes quite late, and I am well past my foggy exhaustion.
Another friend e-mailed me and said how sad she was, because of recent difficult events in her life. She is one of the most loving people I know, and she was questioning whether love was enough. So it can strike anyone, at any time. Illness, sadness, depression, loneliness. And sometimes it's difficult to even try to be happy, or to find a reason to do so. My response to this, to other people but most often to myself, is that we DESERVE to be happy. As human beings, we just plain deserve it. It's fine to remember to be grateful, but I think we must also recognise what we deserve. And it does no good to think of the past wrongs we've done or had done to us. They don't make us any less deserving of happiness right now, from this moment on. Our wrongs won't change the world from this point on, but our happiness might.
So with that in mind, try with me to think grateful and deserving and happy. Try to see the blue sky and the turning trees and your neighbor's face as beautiful, and a gift to you. Try at least, first, to just see them in their beauty. To write and draw them. Then you've done something to deserve them. If you need an excuse, there it is.
I love the warmth, the sun. I do not do well when it gets frosty at night and downright hot by noon. I get sick, sometimes to the point I can't force myself out of bed. Then I get cranky, anxious, and very unhappy. I tend to not be able to stop the racing thoughts of betrayals and wrongs and misery of the past. I myself am not a paragon of peaceful, calm happiness. You'll have to look to the Dalai Lama for that. (As an aside, a friend of mine mentioned that she is sick of all the Dalai Lama junk mail she recieves. I keep meaning to ask what that means. I think I would LIKE Dalai Lama junk mail. Just seeing his calm smiling face makes me happy, at least for a moment.)
In any case, I am not always happy and laughing, hand-feeding squirrels as in the photo at the right. I am sad. I am sometimes miserable. I am, in other words, a mere mortal. Especially in the autumn in New England. I do not even enjoy the foliage (or foilage, as some of us say), unless it comes quite late, and I am well past my foggy exhaustion.
Another friend e-mailed me and said how sad she was, because of recent difficult events in her life. She is one of the most loving people I know, and she was questioning whether love was enough. So it can strike anyone, at any time. Illness, sadness, depression, loneliness. And sometimes it's difficult to even try to be happy, or to find a reason to do so. My response to this, to other people but most often to myself, is that we DESERVE to be happy. As human beings, we just plain deserve it. It's fine to remember to be grateful, but I think we must also recognise what we deserve. And it does no good to think of the past wrongs we've done or had done to us. They don't make us any less deserving of happiness right now, from this moment on. Our wrongs won't change the world from this point on, but our happiness might.
So with that in mind, try with me to think grateful and deserving and happy. Try to see the blue sky and the turning trees and your neighbor's face as beautiful, and a gift to you. Try at least, first, to just see them in their beauty. To write and draw them. Then you've done something to deserve them. If you need an excuse, there it is.
Monday, September 17, 2007
With Age Comes Wisdom
Not that I'm all that old, or all that wise, but I have learned a few things from kicking around this planet for a while. Perhaps one of the best lessons I have learned is that I will not be stuck in one mood, one mindset, one way of feeling forever. I remember when I was in college and thought every time I felt crappy, because of a breakup, a disagreement with a friend, even a bad cold, it would last the rest of my life. I'd NEVER feel better, but would just have to endure the pain. Well, I was a theater student, but still. I think it's a common feeling, and most common to the very young. Now I know better. I know that each setback, emotional or physical, will sometime end, and I'll feel pretty good again.
I've been thinking along these lines lately because I have been beset by my old nemesis, fibromyalgia, and the fibro-fog has descended. After 17 years of its circumlocutions in my body, I know that it was this time brought on by the vast ranges of temperature we are now experiencing in New England. It goes from 70 during the day, to 30 at night. My body just says no to that 40 degree shift. All it seems to want to do is sleep, and wait until the weather settles itself to real cold, when I am not happy, but am functional at least. Now, when forced to function, I feel either as if every muscle has melted off my bones, or else clings to them so fiercely that I can barely move for the stiffness and soreness. Even my brain turns traitor, and slows to a crawl. I swear I lose about thirty IQ points while the fibro fog lasts.
This brings me to my point. I am quite lucky, really. This state of affairs will last a few weeks, maybe a month, and I'll adjust and be back to normal. So now it's easy to just go with the flow, knowing this will end. It's the same with most of the mental pain I put myself through, the sadness, the holding on to betrayals or hurts, all the myriad things I (fairly infrequently) find to torture myself with. I know now that they will end, just as I know the fibro fog will lift. It's still not easy going through these things, but I get that light at the end of the tunnel feeling and it helps. I know whatever it is will not go on forever. I will feel better, and sometimes I WILL MYSELF to feel better. That's part of the whole Happiness gig. I know I'll feel better, why not actively try to make it so? Sometimes, that action is limited to staying in bed and reading and sleeping, as in the case of the fibro fog. Sometimes it is forcing myself to engage with the world, as in the case of most sadnesses. I know I will feel better sometime, and trying to feel better makes it happen that much faster. So, if you right now feel great, great! Go out there and revel in it. But if you feel sad or lonely or ill, do something that will force you to feel better. Be gentle with yourself, but get out into the world, go to the park and watch kids play, or sit and sip good tea in a cafe, strike up a conversation with a neighbor. Or if you have a bodily malady, give it up and stay in bed, well-equipped with your favorite feel good books or magazines. Write if you feel like it, draw if you feel like it, but give yourself a break. Let yourself be wise. Let it all flow over you, and know that the only true constant is change.
I've been thinking along these lines lately because I have been beset by my old nemesis, fibromyalgia, and the fibro-fog has descended. After 17 years of its circumlocutions in my body, I know that it was this time brought on by the vast ranges of temperature we are now experiencing in New England. It goes from 70 during the day, to 30 at night. My body just says no to that 40 degree shift. All it seems to want to do is sleep, and wait until the weather settles itself to real cold, when I am not happy, but am functional at least. Now, when forced to function, I feel either as if every muscle has melted off my bones, or else clings to them so fiercely that I can barely move for the stiffness and soreness. Even my brain turns traitor, and slows to a crawl. I swear I lose about thirty IQ points while the fibro fog lasts.
This brings me to my point. I am quite lucky, really. This state of affairs will last a few weeks, maybe a month, and I'll adjust and be back to normal. So now it's easy to just go with the flow, knowing this will end. It's the same with most of the mental pain I put myself through, the sadness, the holding on to betrayals or hurts, all the myriad things I (fairly infrequently) find to torture myself with. I know now that they will end, just as I know the fibro fog will lift. It's still not easy going through these things, but I get that light at the end of the tunnel feeling and it helps. I know whatever it is will not go on forever. I will feel better, and sometimes I WILL MYSELF to feel better. That's part of the whole Happiness gig. I know I'll feel better, why not actively try to make it so? Sometimes, that action is limited to staying in bed and reading and sleeping, as in the case of the fibro fog. Sometimes it is forcing myself to engage with the world, as in the case of most sadnesses. I know I will feel better sometime, and trying to feel better makes it happen that much faster. So, if you right now feel great, great! Go out there and revel in it. But if you feel sad or lonely or ill, do something that will force you to feel better. Be gentle with yourself, but get out into the world, go to the park and watch kids play, or sit and sip good tea in a cafe, strike up a conversation with a neighbor. Or if you have a bodily malady, give it up and stay in bed, well-equipped with your favorite feel good books or magazines. Write if you feel like it, draw if you feel like it, but give yourself a break. Let yourself be wise. Let it all flow over you, and know that the only true constant is change.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Alchemy
I have buttermilk I need to use. How do you turn aging buttermilk, this morning's leftover oatmeal, a few frozen raspberries, a lot of geriatric strawberries, maybe some flour and butter and eggs into something like palatable food? A coffeecake? A quick bread? Sure. That's pretty easy. Baking and cooking are a lot like magic. Well, really more like alchemy.
As defined in my beloved but ancient and obscure Winston Dictionary, "alchemy" is alternately from the Old French "alquimie," the Arabic "alkimia," or the Greek "khemia," a mingling or pouring together. It is defined there as "1.) the chemistry of the Middle Ages popularly associated with magic, and especially devoted to the elixir of life... 2.) the professed art of transmuting, or changing, the common metals into gold..." Yesterday Sparky magicked a little cocoa powder and old milk and cornstarch into wonderful pudding, and today I will bake the aforementioned cake. We are alchemists, turning base materials into elixirs of life, food for the body.
So what about the other daily materials of life? The view from our windows, whether of city streets or dripping green leaves. The fading flowers of late summer in gardens or abandoned lots. The faces of those we love, whether sleeping or laughing or in a snit because we've forgotten to turn on the dishwasher. The drive to work, and the ragged man we see offering to squeegee our car windows for a dollar at a traffic light. All this can be magicked as well, turning the base metals of our lives into gold, the elixir of life, food for the soul. That's what committing Acts of Attention will do for us, and the writing, and the drawing. Make us into alchemists of our own lives.
So today, perform some Alchemy. Take stock of the leftover moments, the minor bits and pieces of the every day. What's there for you to make something out of? Is it the trip to the mall to get emergency school supplies, where you rushed through Macy's to the dollar store, but stopped to spray some new, citrusy perfume on your wrists? Is it the slog through the rain to get your dogs some exercise, and the peculiar grace of the dusky light in the forest? Add up the tiny, lucid and lovely moments. You may find more than you think possible. Then write them, draw them. Let them become your elixir of life, and you the alchemist.
As defined in my beloved but ancient and obscure Winston Dictionary, "alchemy" is alternately from the Old French "alquimie," the Arabic "alkimia," or the Greek "khemia," a mingling or pouring together. It is defined there as "1.) the chemistry of the Middle Ages popularly associated with magic, and especially devoted to the elixir of life... 2.) the professed art of transmuting, or changing, the common metals into gold..." Yesterday Sparky magicked a little cocoa powder and old milk and cornstarch into wonderful pudding, and today I will bake the aforementioned cake. We are alchemists, turning base materials into elixirs of life, food for the body.
So what about the other daily materials of life? The view from our windows, whether of city streets or dripping green leaves. The fading flowers of late summer in gardens or abandoned lots. The faces of those we love, whether sleeping or laughing or in a snit because we've forgotten to turn on the dishwasher. The drive to work, and the ragged man we see offering to squeegee our car windows for a dollar at a traffic light. All this can be magicked as well, turning the base metals of our lives into gold, the elixir of life, food for the soul. That's what committing Acts of Attention will do for us, and the writing, and the drawing. Make us into alchemists of our own lives.
So today, perform some Alchemy. Take stock of the leftover moments, the minor bits and pieces of the every day. What's there for you to make something out of? Is it the trip to the mall to get emergency school supplies, where you rushed through Macy's to the dollar store, but stopped to spray some new, citrusy perfume on your wrists? Is it the slog through the rain to get your dogs some exercise, and the peculiar grace of the dusky light in the forest? Add up the tiny, lucid and lovely moments. You may find more than you think possible. Then write them, draw them. Let them become your elixir of life, and you the alchemist.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Save Your Life Again
Since school is back in session, since the year is turning, the leaves are falling, the night air is cooler (or downright cold here in the Northeast), and change is inevitable, and new beginnings are inevitable, I think we should revisit the question this website is directed to. Why and how can happiness save your life?
The why is pretty self-explanatory. If you're happier, you'll live better. And probably longer. And with less stress. I don't think we really need loads of positive psychology studies to prove this.
But how is it to be accomplished? How be happier? As if that is easy, as if I can blithely say you can be happier and it will be so. I wish I were like Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: Next Generation and could just tell you "Make it so." And you would. Well, since I can't compel you as the captain of the ship, or wave a magic wand, I can only try to gently persuade. And I do have a kind of magic formula to share with you:
Pay Attention, Really Pay Attention To The World Around You. Commit Acts Of Attention To It. Then Fix Those Acts In Your Memory And In The World By Writing/Drawing Them.
It's really not so difficult. All you need is a notebook and a pen or pencil. 20 minutes here and there. The exercises I write up about three times a week, or your own. And your attention. And your will to be happier. That's all. I promise you if you work at this (yes, happiness takes work, like anything else worth having), you will become happier. So, in this time of transition, and of settling to something new, decide to be happier. Decide you can give yourself that gift.
The why is pretty self-explanatory. If you're happier, you'll live better. And probably longer. And with less stress. I don't think we really need loads of positive psychology studies to prove this.
But how is it to be accomplished? How be happier? As if that is easy, as if I can blithely say you can be happier and it will be so. I wish I were like Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: Next Generation and could just tell you "Make it so." And you would. Well, since I can't compel you as the captain of the ship, or wave a magic wand, I can only try to gently persuade. And I do have a kind of magic formula to share with you:
Pay Attention, Really Pay Attention To The World Around You. Commit Acts Of Attention To It. Then Fix Those Acts In Your Memory And In The World By Writing/Drawing Them.
It's really not so difficult. All you need is a notebook and a pen or pencil. 20 minutes here and there. The exercises I write up about three times a week, or your own. And your attention. And your will to be happier. That's all. I promise you if you work at this (yes, happiness takes work, like anything else worth having), you will become happier. So, in this time of transition, and of settling to something new, decide to be happier. Decide you can give yourself that gift.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Lucky
I'm back. My eyes seem better, or did seem so until I read regular print most of the morning (Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier, for the second time, and it's as wonderful as ever).
These golden days of late summer we've been regaled with have been reminding me of many things. I have been enjoying sitting out, lying in lounge chairs and listening to the lazy brook, reading or not, the dogs lying near, or rearing themselves up, leaping in play. It is good just to be alive in the sun, with the green light of leaves overhead. I have been feeling lucky, and that reminds me. Of when I had friends come over to stay in one of the farmhouses where I lived, good friends who spent near every holiday with me, Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter and the Fourth of July. There were four of us. And every holiday I would unearth the napkin rings I saved for our occasions, that were simple silver bands, each stamped with one word. One was Peace. Another Beauty. The third was Love. And the last was, a little oddly, Lucky. All four of us had claimed our napkin ring, our word. Mine was the odd one, the Lucky one. And I guess that's right. I am Lucky. Lucky to have my memories, lucky to be making more, lucky to have my dogs and friends and a late August birthday, when I can go to plays and concerts and almost live outside. Camp on mountains, walk on beaches and hear the roar of waves, dip my toes into the cold brook and watch the sunsplashed rocks change with the light.
I have also been recollecting a time when I lived in a cabin in the woods of Connecticut, loaned to me by a friend in a time of trouble. There was no running water. I brought water in to drink, and hauled from a spring for washing. There was no electricity. I lit kerosene lamps to read by in the night. There was no heat. I had roaring fires in the fireplace on cold September nights, after gathering downed branches and kindling. It was wonderful. I stayed six months, with my dogs and my cat, bathed in the pond nearby, walked through the woods to my friend's house at times for company. And when I left, moved to Boston, almost fell down when I turned a tap and water flowed from the faucet. I had been grateful and lucky to escape civilization, but I felt just as grateful and lucky when I returned to it.
So I wonder, how are you lucky? What memories do you have that require you to claim the napkin ring of the Lucky? Write them, draw them, and even if they seem contradictory, be glad for them. Be glad to just plain live in the sun.
These golden days of late summer we've been regaled with have been reminding me of many things. I have been enjoying sitting out, lying in lounge chairs and listening to the lazy brook, reading or not, the dogs lying near, or rearing themselves up, leaping in play. It is good just to be alive in the sun, with the green light of leaves overhead. I have been feeling lucky, and that reminds me. Of when I had friends come over to stay in one of the farmhouses where I lived, good friends who spent near every holiday with me, Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter and the Fourth of July. There were four of us. And every holiday I would unearth the napkin rings I saved for our occasions, that were simple silver bands, each stamped with one word. One was Peace. Another Beauty. The third was Love. And the last was, a little oddly, Lucky. All four of us had claimed our napkin ring, our word. Mine was the odd one, the Lucky one. And I guess that's right. I am Lucky. Lucky to have my memories, lucky to be making more, lucky to have my dogs and friends and a late August birthday, when I can go to plays and concerts and almost live outside. Camp on mountains, walk on beaches and hear the roar of waves, dip my toes into the cold brook and watch the sunsplashed rocks change with the light.
I have also been recollecting a time when I lived in a cabin in the woods of Connecticut, loaned to me by a friend in a time of trouble. There was no running water. I brought water in to drink, and hauled from a spring for washing. There was no electricity. I lit kerosene lamps to read by in the night. There was no heat. I had roaring fires in the fireplace on cold September nights, after gathering downed branches and kindling. It was wonderful. I stayed six months, with my dogs and my cat, bathed in the pond nearby, walked through the woods to my friend's house at times for company. And when I left, moved to Boston, almost fell down when I turned a tap and water flowed from the faucet. I had been grateful and lucky to escape civilization, but I felt just as grateful and lucky when I returned to it.
So I wonder, how are you lucky? What memories do you have that require you to claim the napkin ring of the Lucky? Write them, draw them, and even if they seem contradictory, be glad for them. Be glad to just plain live in the sun.
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