Happier Made Simple

When did happiness get so complicated? If you want to get thoroughly confused, just peruse the self-help bookshelves at Barnes and Noble, or the online selections at Amazon.  Set Goals. Live Goal-Free….Live for the Moment. Plan for the Future…Treasure Ordinary Moments. There A<em>re</em> No Ordinary Moments.  All kinds of contradictory advice – 300+ pages of it in each book. Who has the time to read all that anyway, even if it weren’t so confusing? Last summer my friend Rikki asked me this question: “Do you think life is easy or hard?”  I had no answer for her, and later I realized why: I don’t think that’s for us to decide.  It’s for us to learn what we can, love all we can, do our best.  Sometimes it’s easier, sometimes incredibly joyful, and – yes – sometimes very very difficult. We all have our stories of challenge and triumph, and yet we are <em>not</em> our stories.  We are, perhaps, the way we react to our stories.  I’m no expert.  I have no graduate degree in Happiness.  But I do know this: my story so far, like yours,  includes both heartbreak and healing. Friends discovered – and lost.  Dreams that came true, and many more that did not. And we learn.  My story includes chapters that others say make them see me as a survivor: An alcoholic husband who disapperared without a trace, leaving me to raise two young children alone; a son who developed a major mental illness that put our family through crisis after crisis; the uncertainty of a work life that places little value on wisdom and too much on youth; the loss of my broadcasting job and the years of income loss afterwards.  Blah, blah, blah.  There are worse – much worse – stories; there are others that seem, on the surface, much more charmed.  I am a happy person.  I’m a happy person because I choose what I <em>tell myself</em> about the stuff that happens. I can’t focus on a yoga class. I’ve never made it through half an hour of meditation. But I can take a breath when things get tough, and find a phrase that helps.  That’s what this blog is about – partly. Simple choices that make happier – well, simpler. thanks for being part of this.