I'm Happy!

"Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth...I'm happy!" I truly feel it!

I am not much of a music person anymore, except for music to which I dance. Not because I don't like music, but mostly because I love the stillness of just BEing.  That said, I have a crazy earworm for the Pharrell Williams' song, "I'm Happy!" (from Despicable Me 2.)  Since I've already confessed that I am not much of a music person, then I guess it is safe to admit that I'd never heard this song until Sunday evening on the Academy Awards program.  I guess I may be the only person on the planet who could actually say that, but I am sure there must be someone else out there.

Confessions behind me, I love this song.  It is so infectiously...well, happy.  I can't listen to one play-through of that song without feeling really good...no, great.  When I was hall-walking tonight, I felt like I was flying down the halls.  I had a spring in my step that is usually reserved for those first delicious spring days. (I admit that I even danced a bit, clapping to the music.)

The line above, "Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth," haunts me.  I really believe that "...happiness is the truth!"  I think that as human beings we are hard-wired to be happy, but sometimes life gets in the way, and I forget.  I can remember working at a place where my nickname was "Little Mary Sunshine," and I mourn the amnesia of the part of me that knows I am happy and knows that happiness is the truth.  This week it has awakened.  Did a piece of music jar me back into happiness?

The mail today brought the Omega catalog.  (Toys R Us for personal transformation.)  The CEO's opening letter reminded me of a Native American myth with which I always resonate.  In the myth, a grandmother is teaching her grandson, "A fight is going on inside of me.  It is a fight between two wolves.  One is an angry, greedy, self-pitying, arrogant, jealous and prideful wolf.  The other is a joyful, generous, kind, peaceful empathetic, and humble wolf.  The two wolves are always fighting. And that same fight is going on inside you--and inside every other person, too."

The grandson reflects for a moment before asking, "Which wolf will win?"

The grandmother smiles and responds, "The one you feed.  The one you feed."

I am certain that I have not been feeding the joyful, happy wolf in me nearly enough.  "Happy" is a rich, wonderful, and delicious meal for the happy part of me.  I also feel the happy wolf when I write, and I freely admit that I've missed writing and the happiness it brings while I've been recuperating.  Exercise and healthy foods feed the happy one, too. And, always, always, dance feeds the happy, joyful one. 

But the grandmother is right.  The two are always fighting.  My second full day of Lent had been consumed with nervousness as my body withdraws from sugar...until "Happy."  Less than one minute of feeding the happy wolf, and I am excited, joyful, and energetic.  The two cannot co-exist: they  stand in juxtaposition, but they cannot co-exist. 

So, as I wrote in Leading from the Heart (and a lot of other places.) Life is a choice: you choose.  I am choosing to be happy and to feed the happy wolf in me.