The Pursuit of Happiness

I wrote down as one of my goals today, to write on the Pursuit of Happiness, and as I'm at the stage in goal-setting where the goals are pursued whether they make me happy or not - i.e. Day One - I'd better get started.

Naturally, I have nothing original to say, but as this is no hindrance to any other of the blogs around, I'm not going to let THAT get me down. 

(Two paragraphs ... Well, it's a start.)

This all stems of course from my Resilience Training, which is now in Week 6. We are doing TLC's which in the context of my RT means, Therapuetic Lifestyle Choices. Groan. I eat too much, I don't get enough sleep, exercise is horrid, and I spend too much time doing untherapuetic things like ... Sitting on my big fat sofa watching highly unsuitable television. I do have some fun too, but it does rather feel as though I shouldn't ... 

"Seriously, Mary," I nag, (And you know me, I NEVER nag.) "You have to make some changes if you want to live to be 106 in order to get every last penny back that you invested in The Prudential." 

The above is a long story, and I strongly suspect only I find it interesting, so moving on... . 

There's an App for it, says Clay Cook, the prof delivering this course, so I went to look, and there IS. I have been tinkering with it all day, and I am now checking on every one  of my goings-on in order to decide whether or not I derive any benefit from them. It might sound very selfish to ask of the World, "Are you making me happy?" But as happiness is derived as much by giving as getting, or more so, it can work out to everyone's benefit. Besides, if I'm pissed, everybody gets it. Not good. 

Actually, apart from a slight 'not being in the moment, moment' when I thought something unpleasant about a woman who drove discourteously in my direction, and advising her to be more considerate in future, I haven't done too badly today. 

Nothing dramatic. No adrenaline rushes or mighty acts of mercy, just this:

Took clothes to a charity shop

Made a conscious act of forgiveness 

Cleared out some junk 

Bought a Big Issue

Ate a fruit salad instead of a bar of chocolate

Did my exercises the physio gave me for my back

Weighed in on Wii Fit

Spent some time in silence  after doing the church flowers

Offered to help a friend out on Sunday

Played with my granddaughters

Had a glass of wine with my lunch

And finally...

Sat in the garden with the flowers, trees and birds and 

Blogged.

Not a single moment of unhappiness. 

Result! 

Bull's Eye

I am taking a course through EdX.org from The University of Washington on 'Resilience'. I am pretty resilient one way or another and bouncing back from a knock has always proceeded at a steady pace.  I thought I'd take the course in order to use it to help other people. That'll come as no surprise. 

Well! I am bowled-over. Week Two was all about  clarification of values. This seemed easy to start with, but proved to be quite an existential challenge, because I had to ask myself, "Who am I and how do I define myself?" 

First off, I realised that I habitually spend far too much time asking the question: "Who do other people think I am, and what is their opinion of me?"

Just seeing THAT was worth the effort of working through the course. 

"Who I think I am?" might be quite an interesting discussion, but I'm not going to have it here, because  it's a fairly fluid concept and may change at any moment. It's what I DO about who I think I am that  was the focus of the Bull's Eye exercise. Which you might Google for yourself if you're interested. 

Given a while to think about it, I find that one of the least satisfying parts of my life, is my habit of attempting  to please other people. In the process of which, I don't always say what I really think, and I don't always do what I really want to do. 

I have no radical agenda here. I'm not going to do anything very life-changing. I'm just going to quietly, softly, say what I really think, and tip-toe around doing what seems right to me. 

It's an exciting prospect. 

Quietly and softly -  making a difference by being true to myself:

A New Kind of Doing -Fr Richard Rohr Thursday, May 22, 2014

"In the second half of life, we do not have strong and final opinions about everything, every event, or most people, as much as we allow things and people to delight us, sadden us, and truly influence us. We no longer need to change or adjust other people to be happy ourselves. Ironically we are more than ever before in a position to change people—but we do not need to—and that makes all the difference. We have moved from doing to being to an utterly new kind of doing that flows almost organically, quietly, and by osmosis. Our actions are less compulsive. We do what we are called to do, and then try to let go of the consequences. We usually cannot do that very well when we are young. Now we aid and influence people simply by being who we are. Human integrity probably influences and moves people from potency to action more than anything else. An elder’s deep and studied passion carries so much more power than superficial and loudly stated principles. Our peace is needed more than our anger. "