"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.
Showing posts with label choosing happiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label choosing happiness. Show all posts
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Friday, January 3, 2014
Hurry and Happiness
The day of the year when I feel almost as happy about working hard around the house as I do the day I decorate for Christmas is the day I undecorated for Christmas. Tree out, wreath and poinsettias gone, furniture back where it belongs: with a deep sigh of relief, things have fallen back to "normal," whatever that is.
I am an NPR junkie, and I find the programs of my local station intellectually stimulating while doing mindless tasks around my apartment, like cleaning and removing ornaments and lights. Today I heard an interesting piece* about happiness and its relationship to usage of time, which started me thinking all afternoon and evening.
Two elements of the research of Dr. John Robinson, University of Maryland sociology professor, tell the story. First, those who are less rushed feel happier, and second, those who have less free time on their hands express happiness more often. The magic happiness cocktail: a combination of not being rushed and having little free time. Not rushed, but having little free time? This seems like a contradiction. I thought if I had less free time, I would feel more rushed. Yet, Robinson's research shows that people who are very happy almost never feel rushed. The reason that they have less free time, he has found, is that they have a lot of interests which they remain engaged in, and which, apparently, bring them happiness.
A related piece of research mentioned in the program, Dr. Erik Angner, economics professor at George Mason University, reports that the more television people watch, the less happy they are. The leap is that they aren't engaged in interests that bring them pleasure, so they have a lot of free time to watch television.
I have a colleague who seems very happy. She has two small children, but she is still is engaged in community, church, and family activities. I've often wondered how she does all she does, but, despite all that she has happening in her life, she never seems to be rushed. I'd say her life supports Robinson's research.
Some topics just keep coming around. The first is about being present. It seems to me that when I am really present, I am not rushed. I am not thinking about what is next or what isn't being done; I am able to enjoy what I am doing because I am present to it in the moment. As someone who often does feel rushed, I can say that it relaxes me to just think about being really engaged and present to a number of pleasurable activities. I actually could have been as mindful about undecorating my house--really been present--as I was decorating it, and I'll bet I would have felt a lot less tired at the end of the day.
The second is about choice. Robinson reports that those who are most rushed experience outside pressures beyond their control. He says that a sense of control in our lives is important to happiness. But who could have more balls in the air than my colleague, who seems never rushed? I suspect that those who are happiest just choose to be present--they choose to let go of control in exchange for just enjoying--being in joy--with what they are doing.
Winston Churchill is credited (probably incorrectly) with the quote: "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." If we feel too rushed to give or even too rushed to be present, then, it would seem to me, that we are really choosing not to be happy, although most of us would probably not make that choice if we were conscious of what we are doing.
Robinson sums up his research with a play on words from the Bobby McFerrin hit of a couple decades ago: "Don't hurry, be happy." Now that's a choice. Why would I want to hurry if I could be happy? That's a no-brainer. I think that may be a good fourth intention for my year...or maybe the intention should be: "Be present for this year." I think it is the same.
http://wamu.org/programs/metro_connection/13/05/24/dont_hurry_be_happy_research_highlights_link_between_busy_lives_and_bliss#at_pco=cfd-1.0
I am an NPR junkie, and I find the programs of my local station intellectually stimulating while doing mindless tasks around my apartment, like cleaning and removing ornaments and lights. Today I heard an interesting piece* about happiness and its relationship to usage of time, which started me thinking all afternoon and evening.
Two elements of the research of Dr. John Robinson, University of Maryland sociology professor, tell the story. First, those who are less rushed feel happier, and second, those who have less free time on their hands express happiness more often. The magic happiness cocktail: a combination of not being rushed and having little free time. Not rushed, but having little free time? This seems like a contradiction. I thought if I had less free time, I would feel more rushed. Yet, Robinson's research shows that people who are very happy almost never feel rushed. The reason that they have less free time, he has found, is that they have a lot of interests which they remain engaged in, and which, apparently, bring them happiness.
A related piece of research mentioned in the program, Dr. Erik Angner, economics professor at George Mason University, reports that the more television people watch, the less happy they are. The leap is that they aren't engaged in interests that bring them pleasure, so they have a lot of free time to watch television.
I have a colleague who seems very happy. She has two small children, but she is still is engaged in community, church, and family activities. I've often wondered how she does all she does, but, despite all that she has happening in her life, she never seems to be rushed. I'd say her life supports Robinson's research.
Some topics just keep coming around. The first is about being present. It seems to me that when I am really present, I am not rushed. I am not thinking about what is next or what isn't being done; I am able to enjoy what I am doing because I am present to it in the moment. As someone who often does feel rushed, I can say that it relaxes me to just think about being really engaged and present to a number of pleasurable activities. I actually could have been as mindful about undecorating my house--really been present--as I was decorating it, and I'll bet I would have felt a lot less tired at the end of the day.
The second is about choice. Robinson reports that those who are most rushed experience outside pressures beyond their control. He says that a sense of control in our lives is important to happiness. But who could have more balls in the air than my colleague, who seems never rushed? I suspect that those who are happiest just choose to be present--they choose to let go of control in exchange for just enjoying--being in joy--with what they are doing.
Winston Churchill is credited (probably incorrectly) with the quote: "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." If we feel too rushed to give or even too rushed to be present, then, it would seem to me, that we are really choosing not to be happy, although most of us would probably not make that choice if we were conscious of what we are doing.
Robinson sums up his research with a play on words from the Bobby McFerrin hit of a couple decades ago: "Don't hurry, be happy." Now that's a choice. Why would I want to hurry if I could be happy? That's a no-brainer. I think that may be a good fourth intention for my year...or maybe the intention should be: "Be present for this year." I think it is the same.
http://wamu.org/programs/metro_connection/13/05/24/dont_hurry_be_happy_research_highlights_link_between_busy_lives_and_bliss#at_pco=cfd-1.0
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Choosing Peace
In his powerful little book Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl wrote about surviving a German concentration camp. "Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you became the plaything of circumstance....It is this spiritual freedom--which cannot be taken away--that makes life meaningful and purposeful."
I first read Frankl's words so many years ago that my yellow highlighting now fades into the yellowing of the pages themselves. Yet as I read them, they are still as profound as they were then. That someone who survived the Holocaust could write about the experience as spiritual freedom still leaves me in awe.
Over half a century later, I recently heard the articulate Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped at knife point and held captive for many months earlier this century, talk about moving beyond her experience. Although she was only 14 at the time of her capture and subjugation, she described a conversation with her mother the day after she was rescued by police. Her mother encouraged her that the best way to get back at her kidnapper was to have a happy life. Now 25, Smart has done that.
There are things that happen in our lives over which we have little or no control, but we always have control over our experience. I think of Frankl and Smart, I am once again certain that having peace is a choice, and it is a choice that we make, as Frankl said, every day and every hour.
I first read Frankl's words so many years ago that my yellow highlighting now fades into the yellowing of the pages themselves. Yet as I read them, they are still as profound as they were then. That someone who survived the Holocaust could write about the experience as spiritual freedom still leaves me in awe.
Over half a century later, I recently heard the articulate Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped at knife point and held captive for many months earlier this century, talk about moving beyond her experience. Although she was only 14 at the time of her capture and subjugation, she described a conversation with her mother the day after she was rescued by police. Her mother encouraged her that the best way to get back at her kidnapper was to have a happy life. Now 25, Smart has done that.
There are things that happen in our lives over which we have little or no control, but we always have control over our experience. I think of Frankl and Smart, I am once again certain that having peace is a choice, and it is a choice that we make, as Frankl said, every day and every hour.
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