Happiness

Today on TV I listened to Author Gretchen Rubin discuss her book The Happiness Project. She said a lot of bookclubs were waiting for the paperback copy to come out as they wanted to use it in their club. I am going to suggest my book club, Book Talk, read it too.

Rubin took a year and studied all kinds of people to find out their philosophies on finding happiness, as well as discovering her own method.

I agree we all want to be happy, but I think I am more of a positive thinker. I think sometimes you can look at something in a positive way and find good in it even if you aren't happy.

A good example of this is the occastion of my 30th birthday. We were having a home built in Hayward, Ca. During the wait we lived in temporary Military housing in Alameda, Ca. Since it was my birthday, we were going to drive out to see how our house was progressing and then we were going out to dinner. While we were gone, the house we were living in burned down. We were going to wait until we got in our new house before we bought insurance, so we were left with nothing, not even our dog, and no insurance. We had just been transferred to Alameda so we knew no one. Now this is a situation that I think it would be difficult to feel happy about.

With our son in the back seat of our car, we were going to find a place to eat dinner and try to calm our minds. As we drove,. all of a sudden my husband and I started singin the song "Oh, we ain't got a barrel of money, maybe we're ragged and funny, but we'll travel along, singi'n a song, side, by side." My son said, "how could you sing when we just lost everything?" Our answer was that we were not in the fire and we had each other. That was what was important.

Many people don't like folks who always find something good in everything. In fact, when I was a child my mother always called me Pollyanna. At the time I had never read any Pollyanna books, but I knew it must be bad, because of the tone my mom used when she called me that.

When I did read the books I found that Pollyanna's philosophy was to always find something to be glad about, whatever the situation. I don't know why I am that way, but I figure we only have one life and we can spend it crying or we can spend it laughing. I would rather laugh.

So, getting back to Rubin's Happiness Project, of course I believe in finding ways to be happy and to make others happy, but it always helps if you think positive.

Word for the Day.
Maven=expert
Thought for the Day.
"The days are long, but the years are short.