If The Title Was "Happiness" Would You Read It?

I ask that question in the title because of how many page views my post "Sadness" received. I was thinking about how unlikely it would be that "Happiness" as a title would receive as many visits. Why? It is a rather popular subject in the mindfulness and positive psychology movements. This notion that the negative tends to stick to us more and the positive slides right off. We are, often unconsciously, drawn to what is difficult and have to consciously practice soaking in what is easy, good, joyful. This is how I experienced the very subject this week...

As is my usual routine, I went running on Monday. There are many inclines and declines on the paths and roads I choose. The extreme weather this winter has taken its toll, limiting my running opportunities and causing hills to feel more like "exercise" in the hard sense of the word. Running uphill Monday, I had to talk myself through it, agreeing with the voice that said it feels hard and then reminding myself that it is a temporary difficulty and to keep going. It will end, as all uphills do. And then, a greater realization came when I recognized that I was actually going downhill and how pleasant it was. I almost missed it! I wouldn't have missed the incline, but I certainly could have passed right over the decline. Isn't that the way it often is! We see the hardship, feel it, roll around in it, wear it for a while until we shake it off. But, how about happiness? What if we could feel it, roll around in it, wear it for a while (this is the important, often missed, part), and didn't shake it off? If there is one thing I have learned most significantly in the past two years, this might be it. It feels like such a revelation that I keep wanting to share it. Soon, I'll be knocking on doors with pamphlets! The power of recognizing what is good, well, joyful, easy, pleasant and staying with it is profound in its simplicity. It comes in recognizing what gifts I already have. There are always so many when I take the time to appreciate what is right before me. This is also known as gratitude. It can't be an imposed sense of gratitude, it is more like an awakening to awareness. It is humble.

After I wrote my last post where I acknowledged accepting my tiredness and the need to be taken care of without judging the feeling, I suddenly found myself realizing all the ways I have actually been taken care in the past few days. Someone close to me gave me the ability to watch television on my computer, a simple luxury in my cable-less apartment. I'll now be able to watch Downton Abbey on Sunday nights with the rest of you who do. I had the gift of an extra hour before my children arrived for the day so I could run on the first sunny, snow-less morning in a while. I was given a gift for Valentine's Day. My sister and brother-in-law had my kids and I over for dinner,  which was fun for my kids and a relief for me to have adult company. I could go on, but you get the point. This morning, I felt grateful for NJ Transit for getting to me to the city on time. None of that was guaranteed to me to happen. All of those are ways I have been taken care of. They are easy to miss. In the past I would have overlooked them and felt my life was constantly lacking and I would feel a deep longing. What a difference it is to take in the good, which is simple in its form and hidden in its obviousness.

On the days or in the moments when I feel a deep lack of something, as if something essential is missing, I take it in and honor the need and the longing with genuine care. Though I might not do it in the same moment, I also try to see what of that very thing I may already have in some form. This is not talking myself out of the feeling, but a gift I give myself, the gift of seeing. That is not to say that I don't reach for what I may still be longing for, but the longing and search doesn't wipe out what I already have. Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh would say that happiness is available here in this very moment. I used to think this was an overly simplistic statement, but now, I have to agree. I believe it took some suffering to arrive there, but even at my lowest, I now know that the suffering part is is not all of me. There is still the part of me that smiles and laughs, of which I do plenty.

Happiness. It is a title worth reading about. We have to practice it though. In a society where ownership and the accumulation of things seems to be the goal and there is constant barrage of messages suggesting that we need something else, this other way of being in the world, of recognizing the happiness in what we already have, needs to be nurtured and encouraged. It is infectious, too. The more we notice happiness, the more of it we have. I often write about being able to stay with what is difficult and not running from it. In doing that, I have also learned to stay with what is joyful and not run passed it.