Happiness Is As Happiness Does

I commute to work 15 miles and (usually) 45 minutes each way during the worst possible times of the day.

Rush hour in Denver is typically brutal - especially on Friday afternoons when traffic starts backing up around 3 p.m. as the masses make a mad dash for the cooler air of the Rocky Mountains.

This Friday was no exception. 

Stuck on the highway driving about as fast as I can walk, my mind wandered off on a tangent about happiness as I watched an older, red Jeep Cherokee weaving in and out of lanes, attempting to get to wherever he was going just that much faster. In other words, he was driving like a jerk. However, he wasn't bothering me any. I found his efforts rather amusing and I noticed and appreciated that each time he made a lane change, he'd give a nice courtesy wave to the person he'd just cut off. Frankly, several times that person was me - which should tell you how well his maneuvering was working out for him. That is to say it wasn't working. At all.

As I approached my exit, I darted over to the faster moving exit only lane and, as I passed by him on the right, I glanced over at him out of curiosity. He looked over at me - a young man, perhaps mid-20's. He grinned, he waved as though I was his co-conspirator. I laughed and waved back.

Moments later, having successfully exited the snarl of I-25, I happened past a bus stop and saw a tall, thin man - mid-30's - with curly strawberry blond hair, standing there, looking down at his cell phone and grinning. He was, by all accounts, rather plain. But, when he looked up at me at the moment I passed, his face was positively beautiful in its glow of pure pleasure. A love text message received perhaps or a particularly nice conversation just had. I have no idea. But the look on his face - the unadulterated joy of it - was infectious. I smiled again.

That's when it occurred to me...

Wisdom dictates we are responsible for our own happiness. When we refuse to accept responsibility for what we feel, we doom ourselves to unhappiness. When we have unrealistic expectations of others to make us happy, thereby forcing the onus onto others to fulfill us, there is no possible long term successful outcome. Mostly, because we are selfish creatures and are most often too busy making it all about ourselves instead of another.

And because I am Infinitely Wise^TM *cough* *sputter* *cough*, I support this belief.

However, when I was driving home that day after a very long day, a very long week, and I was weary and hot, two men I've never seen before and will likely never see again, made me happy.

Why?

Because both of them appeared happy and seemed to have some happiness to spare, yes. But also? Because I was paying attention and let someone else's sunshine in.

Think about it.

What makes you happy? What makes your day?

For me, it's hearing someone I love laugh or, better yet, making them laugh. It's getting an opportunity to express gratitude and also to receive someone else's sincere gratitude for even a small token gesture. It's spending time with people I care about in pleasurable circumstances. It's acknowledging a stranger on the street with a wave, a smile, a "hi". It's receiving comments from people I know and people I don't all over the world. It's making thoughtful comments. It's knowing a certain assistant manager at my local grocery always comes over to greet me whenever she sees me. It's taking the time to listen to a sad friend or to buy supper for a broke friend. It's touching the face or holding the hand of someone who needs the affection and attention. It's receiving flowers from Canada, a card from California, a book from North Carolina...and then passing it on. It is seeing someone else happy and feeling happy that they are happy regardless if I've had a hand in it. It's donating to a good cause.

For me?

Happiness is giving and receiving - consciously as well as passively.

Doesn't that suggest my happiness depends on others?

So...my own happiness is my own responsibility. I get that. I totally do. But the kindness of others, the love and happiness of others, most certainly contributes to just how happy I feel. If I can give in some small way to someone else's happiness...even if it's just by sending a "hee hee" or a "<3" text message...and hoping the recipient appreciates it and will, somehow someday, reciprocate the gesture or that the gesture will be repaid in some way via someone else?

That makes me happy.

I'm happy.

And I want to pay it forward.

Just Another Mental Dump

Here are some things that have been on my mind:

1) I've had a low grade sinus infection for the last 3 weeks. I am entirely over the yellow-y green phlegmtasticness that is currently me right now. But honestly, I bring this up because I really just want to show you this again:



Hee hee.

I'd go to the doctor as, I'm sure, many of you would recommend, but I am the sufferer of many a sinus infection and I can tell you from experience, in all honesty, antibiotics don't actually help sinus infections. At least, not much.

So I'm suffering through it. Even when my teeth hurt so bad I can hardly swallow water.

2) You may have noticed I started a new blog about my journey through debt elimination. If you don't know this, it's at janesinfinitebudget.com. I purchased the domain with birthday money and, in a burst of inspiration, decided to call tech support at GoDaddy to help me set it up before I'd become frustrated. And then? Then I got the tech support person from hell. Her name was Aimee and, trust me, after my experience with her, I sent a scathing e-mail to customer satisfaction. In turn, I discovered this afternoon that "someone" had gone into my domain setup and had messed with my settings so that the host name wasn't pointing to the correct place rendering the domain useless.

It is fixed now. It is working.

And now? Now, I am stating, for the record, I'm on to you, Aimee. One more little tweak on my account like that? And I will do everything in my power to ensure you are unemployed before the week is out. K? Thanks. I hope you have 8 kids and they all starve to death.

Kidding.

Kinda.

3) Which brings up another point of tech contention. So...a few months ago, I enabled Google ad serving to this little space I call my own. You may or may not have noticed. I tried to keep the ad space to a minimum and as unobtrusive as possible.

Ad serving is a passive source of income for me and, when I reconciled myself to it, realized there was a way to enable it so that it wasn't really hurting anyone or getting in anyone's way.

The fact is every time someone visited my blog, it created a page impression and I earned money from that. Certainly not a lot. It takes something like 500 page impressions to generate a penny (I think. It's hard to say). But it was a little something that would have, eventually, come my way. If someone clicked through on an ad on my page? That generated significantly more revenue for me...say, a dollar per click. Sometimes more.

But you'll notice that ad serving is gone from this blog (it is still enabled on the other). The reason why is because, if you recall, I posted a somewhat inflammatory blog a couple of weeks ago about police brutality in which I posted 3 pictures of victims of police brutality. This was a "violation of service" because I depicted acts of extreme violence. I appealed stating that, "the post in question, while a particularly relevant, local, political topic in Denver right now, has been deleted and if you were to read my blog further you would realize it is mostly about baking pie and loving people".

They denied my appeal. No reason given other than I'd originally violated their terms of service and that's it. The end. Here's our middle finger.

Thanks, Google Ad Sense Team. Now I wonder if it wasn't the images that disturbed you so much as it was the topic. Can't talk about police brutality. Just like you can't take pictures of cops period.

Oh well. *shrug*

4) I'm having a good time with the new blog. While it is certainly harder to write and most definitely embarrassing at times, it also feels cathartic and possibly helpful to other people besides me. I've made terrible mistakes. I made decisions I knew were wrong before I put them into action. But I also know I'm not the only person in the world who's done what I've done.

And the interesting thing about shame? Shame is only as powerful as quietly as you keep its secret. I'm telling the world about what I did. And I don't feel shame about it anymore. I'm fixing it. The most shameful piece isn't that I bought into the American way, it's that I allowed the American way to make me feel bad.

No more.

5) We still don't have a clear picture of what's happening with Lex's job. At this point, we're expecting the worst come February 1...no paycheck. No job. But we don't know for certain.

The nice thing about expecting the worst? Anything better is a lovely surprise.

6) I've officially taken the "being responsible" thing too far. Tomorrow? I shall get new tires and an oil change. Birthday money and a loan from Lex's savings - a relatively small amount he felt he could afford - are allowing for this sudden activity.

You have to spend money to save it...right?

Sitting in the Shade of a Palm Tree - Boat Drink in Hand

"Life is short & uncertain. Why are we not doing everything possible to spend every day on the beaches of St. Croix?"

That was the text message I received in the middle of the night from him.

Shit.

I don't know.

That's not the kind of philosophical life question I can answer when I'm scarcely conscious at 2 a.m. on a week night.

Apparently however, that is the kind of question that keeps me awake for an hour while I lie there and ponder it. Apparently, that is the kind of question that stirs my desire for a cigarette...at 2 a.m. without pants or socks on when it's 35° outside. Apparently, that is the kind of question to ask me somewhere between sweet dreams and full coherence.

I just wanted to check the time. Really.

But he always seems to know what questions to ask to force me to think. Even if he's asking in the middle of the night. Even if he's asking via text and the answer isn't text answerable (like Twitter, text has it's character limitations I find stifling and claustrophobic...although, perhaps those are My character limitations). Even if he knows the question is rhetorical. He wants to know my honest, thoughtful answer.

And so I think about it.

Social conditioning?  That's the easy answer and, of course, the first one to pop in my head. American society (and maybe others...I have no ability to ponder the social structures of other societies outside my own at 2 a.m. on a week night) dictates normalcy and sets expectation in its children. Go to school, grow up, get a job, get married, have kids, buy a big house, live in the suburbs, spend, spend, spend, hurry up and save, retire, and THEN go live on the beach if you're so inclined. But you've got to work hard and toil the best years of your life away first. If you're not infirm by then.

If you're not dead.

But wait.

I'm not on that path to "normalcy". Oh sure, I went to school (sometimes), I grew up (mostly), I got a job (and then another and then another)...but I somehow took an unmapped turn somewhere in the middle of Normal and headed south across the border between Acceptable and Are You Fucking Kidding Me.

So social conditioning isn't really the answer. At least not for me. Probably not for him either...

Or is it?

What is it then? What is keeping us from those "beaches"?

Complacence? Doing what we do because it's easy and safe and doesn't take much effort? Because it's just what we do without requiring self-awareness? Because somehow we decided along the way that life was somehow supposed to be this...this...this...mundane? Social conditioning.

Is it fear? Fear of failure? Fear of success? Fear of going hungry? Fear of living simply, frugally, without cable and internet (*gasp*) and smartphones? And still...fear is a social condition. Fear is a reaction to potential consequences from acting somehow "wrong". What's wrong about living a life less ordinary? Silly fear. I laugh in the face of you. Ha!

Is it out of a sense of obligation? To whom? To what? What obligations do we have that are unending? Duty to family and friends beyond loving them - near or far? Duty to employers beyond a two-week notice? Duty to creditors and mortgage lenders beyond paying off that debt starting today? Social conditioning.

Or is it fear of finding ourselves entirely alone? No friends, no family, no familiar loved faces around to provide comfort and caresses when we fall down and go BOOM or to tell us, to show us we are valued and loved. And even though I ultimately believe we are, each of us, always alone, being by myself on a beach on St. Croix doesn't sound as though there is much distraction from the aloneness of myself. That is not lone. That is ALONE. It sounds...peaceful, at first, then lonely. Social conditioning.

So social conditioning is my answer. Isn't the first answer usually right? However, I believe we have the capacity to break free from social conditioning...at least to an extent. So...

I'll go...if you do.

"Let's go. Let's stop waiting for an ambiguous and uncertain future and make it happen. There's never enough time for it all so shouldn't we put our efforts toward joy now?"

A year ago: If You Loved Me...
                  The Daily Shower Thought