If you want to be happy for the rest of your life....

Have a Happy Life

“We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.”

                                  Frederick Keonig

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.”

                                  Albert Einstein

         In her book, Leaving Church, Barbara Brown Taylor quotes a statistic about happiness that is drawn from the research of Dr. John Bach, respiratory expert at the University Hospital in Newark.  “…people who live on ventilators rank their happiness at 5.1 on a scale of 7 while people who breathe on their own score only four-tenths of a point higher for an average of 5.5.”  Dr. Bach concludes, “Happiness is reality divided by expectations.” 

         I’m hearing a lot about unhappiness these days.  People are waking up and realizing that the world has changed; that we Americans are no longer living in the land of ‘free lunch,’ and not only that, but we’re going to need to pay for all those past lunches we’ve enjoyed.  The bubble we so outrageously constructed has burst, and the pieces are all around us.  I am reminded of a scene from the musical, West Side Story, in which the Sharks and the Jets are coming to rumble with sticks and chains—we are in a mad, mean mood.  Our expectations have definitely divided our reality into a perception of ourselves as ‘have-nots.’

         Millions of people are unemployed; thousands more have had their homes ripped off the foundations by tornados, burned to the ground by wildfires, or deluged by rivers on a rampage.  There is ample reason for discontent.  But unhappiness exists even among those who have suffered none of these insults—people who are sitting in perfectly serviceable houses, with plenty of food in the fridge, and paying jobs.  Our expectation was that prosperity would extend to every last human and go on forever because this is America.

         We can spend our time and energy blaming each other, swinging our chains and waving our sticks, or we can make a plan, roll up our sleeves and get going.  We can begin by giving thanks for what we do have---friends, family, freedom, and a willingness to help each other.  We can put our considerable ingenuity into developing new solutions to our problems and then work together to achieve them.  I stand with Einstein in thinking that having a happy life requires having a laudable goal.  As we say down here, “Let’s get ‘er done!”

 

                                  In all things give thanks,

                                  Jane