Tag Happiness

…making all his nowhere plans…

Michael 4 Comments

Recently a friend asked me what I think of when I go to bed. An odd question not quite in the same category as what’s your sign and certainly more thought provoking than what’s your favorite color.

Since I go to bed alone I most often think alone thoughts. You know, “sigh, another night alone.” Now alone isn’t necessarily alone in bed. I much more often think of being alone as being the only one in the apartment than of being the only one in the bed. Of course it’s nice to have somebody care so much that they share their whole body with you but it’s nicer when somebody shares their whole person. But that’s the philosophical me. It took a while to learn that and I’m ok with it even if the bodily me would like to feel another body next to it sometimes. But I think not having someone in the same house is a more profound kind of alone.

They say there’s a big difference between being alone and being lonely. I’m pretty sure those people were never really alone for any length of time. You can talk to someone every day, you can see people during all the waking hours, you can have someone nearby, but those will never take the place of sharing space. When you go through days of going to bed at night never having another person to check in on, never having someone to say goodnight to, knowing if something happened nobody is there to say “it’s going to be ok,” that’s being alone. And if you don’t think that’s also being lonely, you haven’t not had someone to say goodnight to on a regular basis.

I can’t imagine anybody who lives alone who hasn’t thought about what happens if something happens. Is that just part of being alone? Or lonely?

Oh well.

13 Reasons Challenge

Michael 3 Comments

Just about everybody is familiar with the book and TV show “13 Reasons.” Some like it because it brings teenage suicide to light. Some hate it because it celebrates teenage suicide. Some abhor it because it’s just another way to exploit something, anything in the news.

Last week I was trapped in the rabbit hole and came up at a site where a young woman in Australia has taken a completely different direction from the show. In her blog terrymcnude.wordpress.com she says, “Instead of the 13 reasons why Hannah Baker killed herself, (we have to move on from that) and ask ourselves, what are 13 reasons why you’re happy with your life.” She then challenged others to find their 13 Reasons, pass them on, and encourage others to do the same.

While there are so many words being spent every day on all that we’re sure is wrong and unfair in the world, here’s a chance to spend a few on what’s right in yours.

So, I’m going to take that challenge and find the 13 Things that make me most happy and challenge you to do the same and then challenge all those who you share yours with to do likewise – on so on and so on.

13 Things That Make Me Happy.

  1. This is so easy it’s almost cheating. My No. 1 Thing that makes me happy is a daughter who seems to like me, too. Can’t say more than that.
  2. Just as easy is No. 2, having two siblings who are close and caring and never too busy to help with anything, anytime, anywhere.
  3. Having a small but strong group of friends.
  4. A walk in the morning without rain.
  5. Listening to piano-centric jazz. Thank you David Benoit.
  6. Stanley Cup Hockey!
  7. Christmas decorations.
  8. Cooking something without a recipe, sometimes even without a plan, and it actually tastes good.
  9. Spring when I sit outside intending to read but end up staring at the flowers.
  10. Top-down drives in the summer through back country roads.
  11. A good murder – the fictional kind, not one that ends up on the evening news.
  12. Pizza. (I never met a pizza that didn’t make me happy, except one with pineapple maybe).
  13. Being done with dialysis. Maybe someday that might move up in the list when I can actually be done with dialysis. But for now, 3 times a week I’m at my happiest when they pull those needles and they say “That’s it, you’re done for today.”

That’s it, those are mine. Now, are you up to the challenge?

 

The Second (and Third) Happiest Places in the World

Michael Leave a comment

Tomorrow is July 17, 2015. It is also Disneyland’s 60th anniversary. We would have recognized the park’s golden anniversary but nobody was blogging ten years ago. We did recognize “The Happiest Place in the World” two years ago but it wasn’t then, and isn’t still, a Disney property. (Go ahead and check it out. I won’t spoil the surprise if you didn’t read it back then.)

At best, Disneyland is the second happiest place in the world. That’s the small one in California. I’ve been there. I’ve also been to Disney World, the larger one in Florida. Each will try to convince you that it is the happiest place but we know better. They are probably equally happiness inducing so it could be a tie for second happiest place in the world. But I don’t know about that. On second thought I can think of a better second happiest place pushing the park pair to third happiest place.

Sort of related to the Disneys, I came across the second happiest place last weekend. I was having a horrible weekend.  It was hot and when it wasn’t hot it was raining, and when it was hot and raining my basement was leaking. I slept poorly, I ached constantly, and for some reason I had three days of hot food (picante hot, not caliente hot) and was not the better for it. But around 7:00 on Sunday evening in between rain storms I looked out the window and saw the most beautiful rainbow. Vivid colors, perfect arch, disappearing beyond the horizon filling that fabled pot of gold. It was absolutely impossible to be grumpy, grouchy, crabby, cranky, or any other -y you can think of while gazing at that rainbow. That immediately became the second happiest place in the world. The place you stand when you see your rainbow.

Happy birthday Disneyland, and many more. May your visitors be merry and your rainbow be bright. Copyright or not, you just can’t compete with nature for happy. How are rainbows and Disney parks related you ask? You have to watch more movies.