Happiness

After observing the human condition for seventy-some years I'm going to climb on the soapbox and proclaim my take on happiness. This post will depart from my usual update on travel or local (or far away) flowers, so if you're not in the mood to listen to my take on happiness, better click off now and save some heartburn.

"The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness."
---Eric Hoffer

Over the course of my life I've been fortunate to have lived in several parts of our country and many other countries and observed people with different customs. I've also been privileged to have been born in the late 30's and experienced first hand the American cultural transition from small family farms and viable small towns to agribusiness and large urban areas.

"Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be." ---Abraham Lincoln

From the time when, as a child we lived on a farm until I was in high school, my family had little money and by today's standards would have been classified as living in poverty. Yet there were many times during those years when I enjoyed a kind of happiness denied to most of today's children. I didn't have money but didn't need it to play in nature and enjoy family and other non-electronic social interactions in lieu of watching TV or playing electronic games on a computer or other personal device.

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."
---J. R R. Tokien

For many years I've watched people striving for and sometimes achieving happiness, short lived as it may have been. I've heard the common complaint, "If only I had (write in your own desired end here) I'd be happy." I've watched people gain that goal, be happy, but like a child with a new toy, soon throw that happiness away to pursue a new object of happiness.

"You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy." ---Eric Hoffer

People have been trying to define happiness since at least the days of the Greek philosophers.  I can't speak for others but for me happiness is often found, not by seeking it out but in unexpected places while doing other things.

"They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for." ---Tom Bodett

I have come to think there may be seven things that make a person happy:

• Living unselfishly
• Accepting life as it is
• Finding the good
• Seeing the hidden
• Knowing good people
• Having a compatible mate
• Acknowledging a higher power

There may be other things that contribute to happiness but note that "a hoard of gold" is not on my list.

"A fool dreams of wealth, a wise man of happiness." ---Turkish proverb

Never underestimate the power of a dog to bring a smile to your lips, a lilt to your step and peace to your mind. Many's the time I've been stressed or over busy when my little dog, Kuro, would come begging for a walk. Sometime during those walks, it would occur to me that the stress was gone, the brain fog lifted, and I was enjoying a pleasant interlude with a modicum of happiness.

"Happiness is a warm puppy." ---Charles M. Schultz

Kuro wearing his boots ready to search for happiness during a walk in rainy weather. He doesn't much like the boots but he'll do whatever it takes to go for a walk. There are lots of puddles near our temporary house so Ikuko
 suggested he be able to leave the mud at the door.

"Happiness makes up in height what it lacks in length." ---Robert Frost