What Is A Happy Day?
I wonder how we become happy? How does happiness differ for each person?
My happiness has nothing to do with the success, money or power that I thought would bring happiness to me. I am happy tonight but was not this morning. I spent the afternoon and evening with friends. I went for coffee this afternoon with a friend and we talked about books, politics, political correctness. I disagree with many of her views on all of the above topics but the discussion was great. After our 2 hour coffee break I gave her some of my preserved lemons for her Moroccan chicken recipe that she planned for dinner. Just as I was beginning to plan my own evening meal my long time friend called and asked if I had time to talk. At first I was slightly distant and thought oh goodness I need to make dinner. But then I paused and listened to her, her need was greater than mine at that moment. We spoke for just over an hour. She has some health concerns she wanted to talk about. We have been friends since she was in grade 8 and I was in grade 9, so she is indeed a life long friend. So often in my phone calls or visits with my friends I am distracted and not actually listening to them. My mind is busy with my busy-ness. Dinner was late. My brother who lives 3 hours from me was here for a short visit.
After dinner I called my friend whose daughter is running for a position on our local civic government. I told my friend that she was in my thoughts because of her daughter’s big day tomorrow. We talked about that and then some more about books and visited on the phone. We will go for coffee in a day or so. After that I called a recently retired friend who is going to work at the civic election tomorrow. We spoke only briefly but I told her I know she will do a good job tomorrow. We made a plan that I will bring her a cappuccino mid afternoon. After that I made some orange chocolate chip cookies. Recipe found at Noshtastic. http://www.noshtastic.com A great website that is gluten-free. I have celiac so really appreciate a nice gluten-free cookie.
Now I realize that none of the above is extraordinary, even mundane, but it all contributed to a growing sense of well-being. Happiness for me is a sense of deep contentment and belonging. It makes me happy when I connect with people I care about. Now it is unusual that I would connect with 4 such dear friends and my brother in one day but it was really nice. Miriam Webster says the following about the word happy:
Simple Definition of happy: feeling pleasure and enjoyment because of your life, situation, etc.: showing or causing feelings of pleasure and enjoyment: pleased or glad about a particular situation, event, etc. Happiness then according to Miriam Webster Dictionary is the state of being happy.
This what I learned from clients: When I ask people to set their goals for counselling with me almost everyone says a version of the following; ” I will know I am better when I am happy.” Yet almost no one could define the word happy, nor could they figure out a path to get there.
Fleeting Emotion that requires change:
Happiness like any other emotion is transitory and changeable. If each of my days was exactly like today it would not be long before I would be full of resentment that I had to talk to the same 4 friends, make dinner for my brother and so on. So then to be happy most of us need an element of surprise in each day. And we have to notice emotion. What I see in people including myself are robotic elements in each day. We drive to work on auto pilot, we do our jobs and talk to our colleagues every day. There is a sameness in our routines that brings structured stability which is good but somehow we stay turned off or on autopilot when we could be paying attention and turning on our emotional responses. Some of us are afraid to notice emotion because we wonder ” what if I drown in it all”. I am not asking for hyper vigilance which really is quite awful but I am asking for awareness of not only self but those around us.
Thinking about others
This evening I thought ” I wonder how MJ is doing this evening?” I wondered what the civic election meant to the mother of a young woman who is running for office for the first time. So I called and asked. I wondered about AR who is working outside of her comfort zone after 32 years as a nurse. So I called and asked. We joked and laughed a bit and she told me she was just a bit anxious about tomorrow even though she knows that it will all be fine. I did not solve her anxiety but I do hope that I acknowledged it so that she knows that anxiety is OK too.
Individual understanding of happiness:
I learned from one of my very first clients that for him happiness included bowling on a team. Well…my gosh that is my definition of torture. Happiness then is individualized, specific and fleeting.
I want to delve more deeply into what happiness means and looks like on another night but right now an orange chocolate chip cookie is calling out to me.
