Entries Tagged 'Happiness' ↓

comics.com/Duncan

David Gardiner Garcia. Creative Commons license.

As I’ve mentioned before, I was born to avoid being eaten by a crocodile.

What were you born to do? Is your life purpose as strange as mine?

Last Friday Kaitlin sent this picture of Banshee (on the left) and Sammy (on the right) riding in their new car, a Honda Element. The car was bought for them and they clearly appreciate it.

Kaitlin took and sent the picture using her iPhone while riding to Ann Arbor, Michigan from the Chicago area. The four of them, including Torben, make the drive every weekend when there is a home game for the University of Michigan. His family lives in Ann Arbor, and they’re all loyal Michigan fans.

So why the new car for the dogs? They had been making the trip in their hybrid Honda Civic, which has great gas mileage but is a crowded for the dogs. They wanted to wait to buy a bigger car, but Banshee became deathly ill a few weeks before the first game this season and had to have extensive surgery…she lost part of her pancreas, stomach and intestines and the vet thought she was going to die. But she’s a tough lady and seems to have recovered. Because of her wounds she couldn’t make the drive (five hours or more each way) in the crowded Civic. It was a matter of renting a bigger car for the games, or buying a new car now.

Honda CRV

Honda Element

So the Saturday before the opening game I received a phone call from Kaitlin. She and Torben were getting lunch before deciding which car to buy. They had narrowed it down to the Honda CVR and the Honda Element. They were having trouble deciding so she phoned to get a different perspective. Kaitlin told me the pros and cons of each: the CRV had slightly better gas mileage and looked a lot nicer but it wasn’t as roomy. So, wonders of modern technology, she had me go to the Honda website and look at both models. The available CRV was dark blue, the Element gray, and the site let me pick the color of each car. I brought each one up in its own window and switched back and forth while we talked about it. The more we talked the more clear the answer became… they were buying the car for Sammy and Banshee and the visibility and extra room in the Element made it the better choice.

Families can be expensive, but as you can see from Sammy and Banshee’s picture, they can also be priceless. I was grateful that Kaitlin included me in the discussion. She’s an extremely capable woman, and it was generous of her to share the process. It’s another way of keeping connected and building family memories. Thank you, Kaitlin!

The Daily Puppy.

There has been an excess of bad news this week, so I’m grateful to the friend who told me about this piece: I Rescued A Human Today, by Janine Allen*. It lifted my spirits and renewed my hope for the world.

I rescued a human today.

Her eyes met mine as she walked down the corridor peering apprehensively into the kennels. I felt her need instantly and knew I had to help her.

I wagged my tail, not too exuberantly, so she wouldn’t be afraid. As she stopped at my kennel I blocked her view from a little accident I had in the back of my cage. I didn’t want her to know that I hadn’t been walked today. Sometimes the overworked shelter keepers get too busy and I didn’t want her to think poorly of them.

As she read my kennel card I hoped that she wouldn’t feel sad about my past. I only have the future to look forward to and want to make a difference in someone’s life.

She got down on her knees and made little kissy sounds at me. I shoved my shoulder and side of my head up against the bars to comfort her. Gentle fingertips caressed my neck; she was desperate for companionship. A tear fell down her cheek and I raised my paw to assure her that all would be well.

Soon my kennel door opened and her smile was so bright that I instantly jumped into her arms. I would promise to keep her safe. I would promise to always be by her side. I would promise to do everything I could to see that radiant smile and sparkle in her eyes.

I was so fortunate that she came down my corridor. So many more are out there who haven’t walked the corridors. So many more to be saved. At least I could save one.

I rescued a human today.

cheerfulmonk. Creative Commons license.

Once when Barbara Walters interviewed Truman Capote she asked him if he were ever bored. He answered,

No because I’m terribly curious. It’s very hard for me to get bored….

Does that quote resonate with you at all? It sure does with me… it strikes a chord deep in my being. I wouldn’t say I never get bored, but I actively avoid getting in situations where that happens (unless it’s for a good cause). I was seriously depressed when I was a child because I was bored out of my mind, and I never want to go there again. That means being proactive, understanding the optimal amount of challenge I need in my life and providing it for myself.
 

How do I do that? My challenges are mostly mental and spiritual:

• I love to solve problems,
• I love trying to understand how the human mind works,
• And I’ve known since I was a late teen that my mission in life was to understand what makes people happy and to make my small corner of the world a happier and friendlier place.

That’s a modest enough goal… no dreaming big for me… but it’s been enough to keep me challenged and fully engaged in life. It works for me, and I’m grateful.

Mental Training

I majored in physics at Stanford University, and in upper level classes there were always one or two problems in the weekly homework that couldn’t be solved logically. Just knowing the material wasn’t enough. Your mind had to make a creative leap before the answer came. It was a frustrating way of operating, to be stumbling in the dark, with no control over the results. All I could do was play around with the problem… to give my subconscious mind a chance to work on it… and hope for the best. The answer invariably did come… usually in the middle of the night before the homework was due… but, oh, Lord, was it a crazy way to live. I would drop off to sleep, then wake up with an idea, get up and check the math to see if the idea worked, see that it didn’t, go back to sleep until the next idea woke me up, and repeat the process until the answer finally came.

On the plus side,

• I’ve been grateful ever since that I never have to go through that again.
• I’ve never had trouble getting an interesting job, my main motivation for choosing that major.
• And I became fascinated by how the human mind works, especially how it makes creative leaps.

Living Deeply and Creatively

I was much more interested in creative problem solving than in physics, so professionally I used my training to design software for scientific research. Whenever I could I took projects that other people didn’t know how to do, ones that required insight, a different way of looking at things. There was pressure, of course, because I didn’t know how to solve the problems either, and there were deadlines. But part of the challenge was to learn how to handle that pressure well, to learn to calm my body while my subconscious mind was working on the answer. I’ll talk more about this in a future post. The important thing is I was integrating my professional skills with my true love… how to create a happy, fulfilling life.

When I talk about happiness I don’t mean never having problems to deal with with, never having setbacks and losses to mourn. For me it’s more a matter of being fully engaged in life, of following my basic philosophy:

Stay curious and open to life. No matter what happens keep learning and growing. Find what you love to do and find a way to share it with others.

My Favorite Toy

Picture Taker 2 Creative Commons license.

Those of us interested in personal development are living in a great time… we have a multitude of techniques at our disposal. I’ve already written about some of my favorites. But more important than individual tools and skills is the attitude of curiosity and playfulness…of being open to new ways of seeing and doing things. For me that means not identifying with everything I think and feel, but being able to stand back at times to notice how my brain works. By standing back and paying attention, I’m free to make changes if that would work better for me. And to make those changes I have to be in tune with my subconscious mind…that’s the powerhouse for me. I’ve spent years feeding it information relevant to my questions and trusting it to find answers for me. And when I’m successful in making changes, that’s the part of my mind that does the work of changing my automatic habits.

So, thanks to my brain, I’m seldom bored in life. And because I work best in a spirit of playfulness, it’s not too much to say my brain is my favorite toy.

What about you? What makes you feel fully alive? What keeps you from being bored?

Feelings, failure and finding happiness…that was the topic of Oprah Winfrey’s 2008 Commencement Address at Stanford. Not surprisingly, the talk was both entertaining and inspiring…I heartily recommend either watching the video or reading the transcript. The speech resonated with me because she makes the Cheerful Monk motto come to life:

Stay curious and open to life. No matter what happens, keep learning and growing. Find what you love to do and find a way to share it with others.

Feelings As Our Inner GPS
Oprah first talked about feelings…our inner guidance system, our GPS. She told how when she first started out in broadcasting she tried to emulate Barbara Walters, but it didn’t feel right. It wasn’t until she was fired as co-anchor of the 6 o’clock news and placed on a talk show that her mission in life clicked…she felt at home…this was what she was meant to do.

What do we do when we don’t know what our mission is? …”get still, get very still, until you do know what to do.” That’s not intuitive advice for someone raised in our fast-paced, action-oriented society, but it’s powerful and effective. It reminds me of my favorite time-management book: How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein. It was written 25 years ago and its basic advice still rings true: keep asking yourself, “What’s the best use of my time right now?” If that question doesn’t connect you with your inner drive, then you need to figure out what you really care about in life. You need to connect with your passion. I agree with Oprah and Lakein, goals are fine, but only when we’re tuned into our inner motivation. Once we’ve done that, we don’t have to force ourself to work. As Oprah puts it, “So…forget about the fast lane. If you really want to fly, just harness your power to your passion. Honor your calling. Everybody has one. Trust your heart and success will come to you.”

Dealing With Failure, Finding Happiness
The other two points she talked about, dealing with failure and finding happiness, involve learning from your mistakes and using your gifts to give service to others. Again, she uses examples from her own life…the problems encountered pursuing her dream of teaching girls to be leaders…as well as from the lives of Jane and Leland Stanford. Stanford’s official name is Leland Stanford Junior University. Jane and Leland Stanford founded the university in memory of their only child, who died of typhoid at the age of 15. They didn’t let their grief cut them off from life. Instead they used it as motivation to reach out and help others. And that, for Oprah, is the secret of dealing with setbacks, disappointments and grief…and it’s the secret of happiness: “Don’t live for yourself alone….To be happy, you have to give something back.”

I clearly agree with Oprah. I believe what she’s saying is age-old wisdom, well-tested by time. I also believe it never hurts to hear it again. And I believe it’s especially powerful when we not only hear the words but hear the stories of people, famous and not-so-famous, who have lived those principles.

What about you? What stories do you have to share? Please tell us in the comments section.

 
 
ChinchillaVilla. Creative Commons license.
 
 

 
 
Aggarwal_Gopal. Creative Commons license.
 
 

 
 
WoofBC. Creative Commons license.

I kept quitting in the face of adversity until I found something I loved doing, after which point all obstacles became surmountable.
—Jim Buckmeister, CEO of Craigslist

It’s a magical world, Hobbes, ol’ buddy…let’s go exploring!
–Calvin to Hobbes

If it ain’t easy, it’s impossible.
—Anonymous

In The Courage to Be Confused. The Courage to Be Patient, yesterday’s post at Transforming Stress, I mentioned that I’m in the process of going into the guts of my themes so I can convert them from three columns to two. No doubt about it..it’s a messy and time-consuming business.

Why am I doing it? Because I want to. I do think three columns is a bit crowded, but the real reason is to become more adept at writing web pages and building blogs. That’s been on my Possibility List for a long time, and I even accumulated a stack of reference books to help. But I work best when I have a project of my own to do, and redesigning my layout is just the incentive I needed.

So suddenly it’s a fun thing to do. I’m not foolish enough to try to do it on my regular sites, so I set up WordPress at another of my domains, creativityandjoy.com, where I can play to my heart’s content. And it is play because I’m having fun trying things as I unravel the mystery of all those funny lines of CSS and PHP, e.g.,
 

?* A CSS example */
#content{line-height:1.4em;
      margin:0 155px 5px;padding:0;}
#contentwide{line-height:1.6em;
      margin:0 0 5px 150px;padding:0;}
#content h2,#contentwide h2{font-size:1.3em;
         margin:0 0 10px;color:#185dac;line-height:1.2em}
#content h3, #contentwide h3{font-size:1.4em;margin:0 0 8px;}
#content img,#contentwide img{border:1px solid #d0d0d0;
   float:left;margin:3px 10px 3px 0;}

It reminds me of a summer many years ago when I taught myself some beginning Greek. I still remember the thrill when all of those little squiggles actually made some sense. Talk about living in a magical world.

I’m still a little kid at heart…I learn best by playing. What about you? Please share your experience in the comments section.

Thanks to bikehikebabe, Shilpan, and Darren for comments on last week’s post.

 
 
rmansoorian. Creative Commons license.

Self-talk is not that different from a thermostat. It’s one of the ways we monitor ourselves, control impulses and guide actions.
—Tom Brinthaupt, Psychology Professor

When we’re babies we talk to ourselves. We start with sounds, then move onto inflections and rhythms of speech. And while we’re doing it, we’re entranced by the sound of our own voice…it’s one of our first toys. But as we grow up…go to school… learn to interact appropriately with other people, we’re taught to keep quiet…most of the time, at least.

So I don’t know about you, but most of my adult self-talk has been internal. I often have a lively dialog going on, but the mute button is definitely pressed. That made sense when I was working with other people, but I work alone a lot of the time now, and I’ve been thinking of talking out loud more. From what I’ve read, it can be as effective as journaling for keeping in touch with yourself. And it has the advantage that you can move around and do routine chores while you’re talking. But after the millions of words I’ve written in my free-association journal, it’s been hard to make the switch.

Until now, that is.

Why the sudden change?
I recently read Jared Sandburg’s From Crib to Cubicle, A Familiar Voice –Our Own– Reassures. In it Sandburg says as many as 96% of people working in a cubicle environment talk to themselves out loud. That talking may be a nuisance to others, but it also helps keep the talkers on track. It helps them tune out distractions and keeps them focused on their goals. He also says they’re more apt to talk aloud when things go wrong…it’s like having their own friendly guide helping them. One airline pilot even envisioned an imaginary guide sitting in the jump seat behind him, ready to give advice when problems came up. And in a comment to last week’s post at Transforming Stress, bikehikebabe said when she’s tired she finishes her exercises by talking herself through them.

That made a lot of sense. My way of handling a problem is more to gather information or to go off and think and write about it, depending on the type of problem. But when I thought about it, I realized I do miss not talking more. Some of the happiest moments in my life were when my daughter was a baby and I talked to her a lot. She loved it, and it lifted my spirits. And, strange as it sounds, I love talking to the dogs over at the local shelter. Again, they love the attention and the talking is fun for me. Those two situations are similar in that the words don’t matter. Babies and dogs tune into the nonverbal, the tone of voice and the facial expression. And for me it was hearing the cheerful, reassuring voice and the physical act of smiling that lifted my spirits. Hey, I can do that without an audience. So yesterday I experimented with smiling, bouncing on my jogging trampoline, and singing. That definitely worked for me!

A new technique for the toolbox
The interesting thing is I’ve been a bit nervous lately because we’re about to go on a trip and have also just bought our first Mac. Those are both fun things, but a lot to think about. And last night when I was trying to concentrate, my husband kept interrupting because he needed help with something. So I thought of those cubicle workers who face this all of the time, and I started cheerfully talking to myself. “Let’s help him get what he needs so that will be finished, then you can get back to what you were doing. You have plenty of time.” It really worked, and I now have a new mood-lifting/stress-management tool that I can use any time I choose. I will let you know next week if I’ve remembered to do that!

What about you? Do you ever talk to yourself? If so, when do you do it and how does it work for you? Do you ever sing for the sheer joy of it? Please share your thoughts and experience in the comments section.

Thanks to Brian, Shilpan, David, bikehikebabe, Robert, Evelyn, and Daz for commenting on last week’s post.

 
 
2-dog-farm. Creative Commons license.
 

 
 
Haruko, the goat in the picture, loves to play king/queen of the mountain. (See video.)  And presumably Viverati is designed for people who want to be special, to feel superior to others. Some people are clearly motivated by that, but it’s not my style. We can see from the video that Haruko is having a great time, but no more than the ducks and the dog are. I actually identify more with the dog…I, too, have my moments of delight in just being alive.

 
 
alpinemeadows. Creative Commons license.

But if I had to be an animal, I would like to be a search and rescue dog…they, too, get to the tops of mountains. And they do it with friends, have a great time, and make a contribution in the process. That, to me, is the way to live. For their video, click here.

What about you? How do you live your life to the max? Do you believe that “common” sucks?

Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

Thanks to bikehikebabe, Todd, Noa, and Daz for comments to the last post.

Robert at Reason-4-Smile has a related post: Ten symptoms of having vision beyond yourself. In it he quotes from Wikipedia about self-actualizing people:

 
That’s just the opposite of “breaking away from the sheeple“. It’s following your own path without disparaging people who live their lives differently.
 
 

 
 
limonada. Creative Commons license.

Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won’t come in.
—Alan Alda

Stay curious and open to life. No matter what happens keep learning and growing.
—Cheerful Monk

Bertrand Russell, on the other hand, had a completely different different point of view:
We all live in a dream. The fortunate person never wakes up. Basically he was saying, Ignorance is bliss…if you’re lucky.

 
 
Janet 59. Creative Commons.
 
 

 
 
sean dreilinger. Creative Commons.

I cheerfully admit, I’m not one of the “lucky” ones. I’m more like a bird crashing into a window because she doesn’t even see it’s there. The best I can do when that happens is take a bit of time to recover my wits, then go flying off again, learning as much as I can from the experience.

Isn’t that a bit grim for Cheerful Monk? I think not. Just because life is imperfect doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it. And “enjoy” is an active verb. It doesn’t mean just taking pleasure in the good fortune that comes our way, although that is important. It also means taking action to create joy in our lives. I try to do that by making a commitment to curiosity, lifelong learning, love and compassion, and humility and humor. What about you? What is your life like? What do you do to create joy in it?

Please share your thoughts and experience in the comments section.

---

Thanks to bikehikebabe, Ellen, Pauline, Robert and Daz for commenting on last week’s post.

Thanks also to Noa Rose for the Alan Alda quote.

 

 

I took this second picture when I first interacted with him. He wanted to get close and connect with me, but he was still feeling vulnerable. He was nervous about being touched, so I spent a while massaging him. He trembled while I did it, but didn’t resist. Even though his tail was between his legs most of the time, he trusted that it was all right. Towards the end of the session he started smiling. Ah! So that’s what petting is all about. When I did it again the next day he started asking for more.

In this last picture he’s running around having a good time. He’s just a young, happy dog enjoying life. I belong to the local Friends of the Shelter, and we’re now running an ad for Clyde in a statewide newspaper. I’m taking the calls so we can find a good home for him.

To me that’s what this week’s lines from Bob Clubb’s St. Francis Project are about:

[Lord, make me an instrument of your peace....
Where there is hatred, let me sow love...]
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

As I’ve mentioned in About Cheerful Monk, my life purpose is a modest one. I simply want to be able to answer yes to two questions:

• Have you found joy in life?
• Have you brought joy to others?

I’m grateful to Friends of the Shelter for making the answers so easy for me.

Thanks to bikhikebabe, Adam, Bob, Ellen, Al, Sterling, SH, Annette, Adebola, Peter, and Supreme Directory for commenting on last week’s post.