Tag Archives: happiness

Now, not waiting…

I was reflecting on retirement yesterday, and then today I listened to a podcast that mentioned we only live for about 4,000 weeks. We are lucky when it’s more, and when I consider that I’ve passed 2,800 weeks, it makes me appreciate all of the time I have left. This isn’t sad, it’s factual. And the fact is that every week, every day matters.

We’ve all had those weeks that fly by feeling like we’ve done no more than what needed to be done: Eat, sleep, work, repeat… with a few distractions along the way. And we’ve all had weeks that have felt special, even when the regular routine was all that was really done. What’s the difference?

Good conversations, acts of kindness, a delicious meal, a hug, a good laugh, or even a quiet moment of contemplation can help make an ordinary week a little more special. It would have been easy to use the word extraordinary rather than special, but that would be dishonest.

The reality is that it’s hard to live a life where every week is extraordinary. That said, it can be too easy to live a life where weeks just disappear, one less week to live, then another, then another. Every week doesn’t have to be exceptional, just well lived… well lived, not poorly wasted.

It’s fun to plan ahead for the future, but the time to enjoy life is now! Because we really don’t know how many weeks we have left, and so each week we do have is precious.

Nuggets of happiness

My dad passed away last week. Today we did the paperwork at the crematorium, and we’ll do a family gathering in the fall. He had a stroke while I was visiting over the March break and he never left the hospital after that.

While at the hospital, my youngest sister was staying with dad late one night and she was feeling hungry. She said to him, “I’m heading down to Tim Hortons, do you want anything?”

My dad responded, “No thanks, are you going to get some nuggets of happiness?”

Puzzled, my sister asked, “Do you mean Timbits?

Dad smiled and nodded ‘Yes’.

Nuggets of happiness. This is a great metaphor for coping with my father’s death. There are a lot of emotions, and a lot to deal with. There is great sadness. But then there are also those moments of fond, joyful, and humorous times that I’ll enjoy remembering. Little nuggets to love. Little nuggets that remind me he is still with me as long as I choose to remember.

I don’t think I’ll ever eat a Timbit again without remembering my dad.

And while there are many other emotions right now, I know the memories I cherish, the memories I will share with my mother, my siblings, my wife, my kids, and even grandkids in the future, will bring me joy and happiness.

Give them hugs

I don’t usually share personal things like this, but it’s the only thing on my mind.

Just a friendly reminder to call your parents, and if you are close enough, visit them and hug them. I flew in to visit my parents yesterday, in time to see my father have a medical emergency, and I have spent most of my visit so far at a hospital. He’s looking a lot better this evening but will be in the hospital a few more days. I’m so glad that I arrived when I did, and it’s wonderful to have my sisters here too.

So take this as a public service announcement: Call your parents. Visit them. Hug them. Tell them you love them. And while you’re at it, do the same for your kids too!

Optimize not Maximize

Maximize your profits, grow your busy, success is just around the corner, and when you get around that corner greater success is just around the next corner. There is always more to get, more to gain, more to achieve.

But at what cost?

What is your time worth? What happens when you grow too big to feel like a community? Where does the next dollar come from: cheaper parts, lower cost labour, a drop in quality at greater than maximum production?

And again, what about your time? How many hours do you put in? How many hours when you are not working is your brain still focused on your ‘to do’ list, or on your work in general?

Getting bigger isn’t always getting better. Sometimes it’s smarter to optimize than to grow. Sometimes your current customers are more import than your next customers. Sometimes your time with family and friends should be the most important thing you focus on.

But these two things are not mutually exclusive. Optimization can help build your business, profits, and even a positive working environment… and improve your time management. A model of optimization helps you achieve more with less, and allows you to improve in more areas besides a focus only on getting bigger.

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What is the good life?

Uniting the divide

Yesterday I wrote ‘the great divide‘ about religions and their divisiveness. Then my friend, (and former university prof whose class I first sat in about 35 years ago), Al Lauzon commented:

I think we need to diffrentiate religion as faith and religion as an institution. I think it is religion as an institution that propagates violence and misrepresents religion. Aldous Huxley wrote a book called the Perennial Philosophy where he argues that religions can be traced to their mystical origins, and in those mystical findings there is a unified message. The difficulty is the institution then distorts the essence of its founding over time. We see a renewed interest in spirituality over religion and spirituality is about developing a personal relationship with the transcendent. It is about taking one’s own personal authority about one’s relationship with the transcendent rather than the authority of a religious institution. We can be religious without being spiritual, we can be spiritual without being religious or we can be religious and spiritual. Remember, it is taking responsibilty and authority for our own “religious beliefs” that matters. There are mysteries that we will never understand and it is these mysteries that are the beginning of faith.

And then I noted the ‘related posts’ that show up on my blog, and there were two that referenced this proverb:

There are many ways to the top of a mountain, but the view from the summit is the same.

In March 2021 I wrote:

There are many faiths that set people on virtuous paths. There are many secular people who choose to be virtuous without faith or organized religion. If each of these different people live a good life, are they not heading to the same or similar summits? Do they not deserve the same view?

And in March 2022 I wrote:

…good people are good people. If they are on a good and kind path, it doesn’t matter what their faith, background, or ideology is. If they are on a path to being the best they can be, if they are doing their part to make this a better world for themselves, their friends, and their community, well then they are on a good path. It doesn’t have to be the same path as me.

While religions can be divisive, spirituality can unite us. Whether it’s being spiritual from within an organized religion, with one’s own beliefs, or even as a non-religious person, we have the ability to be kind, loving, and feel connected to others and the universe around us. It is in transcending religious institutions, and rigid beliefs that segregate us from common spiritual aspirations, that we will find we have a lot in common with our neighbours… be they across the street or across the globe. Transcending religion, and yet seeking to be spiritual. That’s a path worth taking, worth sharing, and worthy of striving towards.

The great divide

I have been thinking a fair bit about religion recently and the power of belief. People devote their entire lives to the words from a book. Be it the Bible, the Qur’an, the Torah, the Bhagavad Gita, or another text, their book is the path to first a good life, and then to heaven, or a better next life… something beyond this current existence. It’s a compelling desire, to think that this life is not all there is to live, and to put faith in an everlasting existence.

I think that many people find happiness in being faithful, in following their faith. I think the solace it can provide is wonderful for people facing grief, or struggles that they find hard to face. Religions have fostered community and caring for others in very charitable ways. Faith has given people strength they did not know they had.

But faith has also instigated wars, tyranny, and hate. It divides populations of people and creates factions, sometimes even within a single faith as much as with other faiths. Faith has been the corruptor of weak people who have used faith to gain advantages over others, or to excuse their behavior, or even to kill non-believers… all in the name of God.

And this divisiveness is what I’m thinking about recently. It permeates or cultures and our politics. Not the grace of God, not kindness to fellow human beings, but division and differences between and among people. What people say and do in the name of their religion makes me uneasy. And the concern is not they they believe in their faith, I think that’s their right. It’s that they want to impose their beliefs on others that makes me uncomfortable.

It can be as simple as knocking on my door trying to convert and ‘save’ me, or as complex as lobbying for policies that will change laws to force everyone to abide by religious doctrine, or even genocide in some parts of the world. In the full scope of inflicting a religion or beliefs on others I can’t decide if it is misguided people or a misguided God? Each person believes that they are following the ‘right’ God or they would change faiths. Why would the ‘right’ God allow His faith to be so misinterpreted? Why would His focus be on devotion to Him, and not kindness to others?

Again, I hold the view that everyone has the right to believe what they choose. But just as they have choice, so should others. It pains me to think of the harms done to people ‘in the name of’ religion… and I doubt those things would be appreciated by a loving God.

Amazing Support

Isn’t it strange how we take the people around us for granted sometimes? It’s not intentional or hurtful. It’s not that we are taking advantage of them. We simply don’t recognize how the people around us support us, lift us up, nurture us, look out for us, and most importantly care for us. They are just there, doing what they do as a part of our work or family, and they make us better, make our jobs easier, and show kindness when we need it.

Remember to show your appreciation once in a while. Not because they went out of their way to support you… rather, just for consistently being there.

The happiness scale

Imagine a happiness scale from Depressed at the bottom to exhilarated at the top:

– Exhilarated

– Very Happy

– Happy

– Content

– Wanting

– Bored

– Unhappy

– Depressed

I think too many people get stuck expecting most of life to be spent on the high end of that scale and so when everyday life doesn’t meet that expectation, they end up unhappier than they should be… and this can spiral into disappointment and depression.

If you aren’t content with everyday events, then you are left wanting more. If your hobbies and interests only bring you joy when you accomplish something, and not in all aspects of the experience, including the challenges, or prep work, or practice, then the joy is fleeting.

In this TikTok, David Bederman describes ‘the surfer’s mentality‘:

Some people only find joy when riding the wave, and not also the paddling out to catch the wave. Some people compare their daily life to the best life of others shared on Facebook and Instagram. Some people don’t consider a chat with a friend, a laugh at a social media post, or an hour spent lost in an engaging activity as happy times. They perceive happiness as more than that. Happiness is fleeting.

Finding happiness in your everyday life is a way to tip the scale in your favour. A way to spend more time on the upper end of the scale, to not measure yourself as less than happy, wanting more, and feeling like less. Expectation of more than this leads to seeking greater peaks, like holidays, adrenaline rides, and unsustainable nights out of entertainment to pull yourself out of wanting more.

Are you waiting for special moments to be happy, or are you looking for happiness in every day life? Are you comparing yourself to others and what they share publicly, or are you seeking moments in the now that can move your daily life to being content with happy moments interspersed throughout the day?

Because the happiness scale isn’t sustainable if you always desire to move up the scale, that expectation leads you further down the scale more often than not. Instead, the happiness scale is sustainable when you find ways to simply be content, and let happiness find you when you are doing the small things that make life interesting, challenging, enjoyable, playful, and fulfilling.

Update

I found this: Why Having Fun Is the Secret to a Healthier Life | Catherine Price | TED

And I was reminded of this recent post: Big lessons from little ones

Big lessons from little ones

We can learn a lot from being around small kids:

• The delight and joy they find in the smallest of things.

• The ability to adapt rules to find greater joy in a game.

• The freedom to use a toy or a tool in an unintended and imaginative way.

• The way they can be completely honest without malice, shame, or ill intent.

• The comfort that they feel with their bodies and their appearance.

• The easy way in which they share love and affection with people they care about.

• The curiosity and desire to know, to understand, and to question.

It’s a shame that as adults we have let some of these little life lessons slip away.

Changing Perspectives

I’m lounging in a hammock under a couple trees:

When I look up, I see the tree that my feet point to:

Although the tree is vertical and I am horizontal, I am cocooned into the hammock and can’t see the ground, so my perspective is that I’m standing and I can just walk along the horizontal tree in front of me. This shifts the entire world 90 degrees. It looks like I can walk the tree plank over the sky. I simply raise my head to see the ground and this perspective just disappears.

In how many ways can we intentionally do this to gain new perspectives on our world?

That person at work or that student at school who you find annoying, what if you knew more about the struggles they face?

That traffic jam slowing you down, what if it was your car that was rear-ended unexpectedly and you were going to have to deal with months of physiotherapy?

That chore you hate doing, what if you found some pleasure in doing it? What if you could also use that time to listen to something interesting while you completed the task?

So many experiences can be more tolerable, interesting, engaging, or enjoyable, simply by changing perspective. The world doesn’t need to shift 90 degrees to achieve this. In fact, the change can be minor, but the experience can be significantly different… Changing our breathing, tilting our head, looking up, listening intently, smiling, seeking rather than settling, questioning rather than accepting. Everything is a matter of perspective, and perspectives are not hard to change, if change is what you seek.