May 29, 2002

  • Happy Wednesday to All


    Well, we've had another stormy afternoon in Indiana.  The grass is smirking at me through the front window.  It knows that I can't mow when it's wet, and it hasn't been completely dry in weeks. 


    Remember a few weeks ago when I was talking about whether or not it's paranoid to unplug everything in a storm?  In the storm we had a couple days ago, I unplugged everything except my really cool, fairly expensive phone that's less than a year old.  Lightning came through the line and fried that baby.    I can't decide if it makes me happy to know I was right - or sad that I lost my really cool phone.  You know, being right carries a lot of weight in terms of my happiness quotient.


    Have you ever thought about the word happiness?  It's not a word we stop and look up often in the dictionary.  We know what it means.  It's a pleasant emotional state, right?  When I look in my dictionary there is a sequence of words on that page. 


    hap - chance, luck, a chance occurence
    haphazard - done or chosen at random
    hapless - unlucky
    happen - to occur (by chance or otherwise)
    happenstance - a think that occurs by chance
    happy - feeling or showing pleasure or contentment
    happy-go-lucky - taking events cheerfully as they happen


    It doesn't make much sense to say that all humans have an inalienable right to pursue happiness if happiness merely refers to a feeling.  Why stress pursuit of happiness as a right above the pursuit of other emotional states?  Why didn't the Declation of Independence say that we all have the right to pursue achievement, success, contentment, inspiration, ecstacy, bliss, enthusiasm, rapture . . .


    I think for the same reason that Abraham Lincoln said that "most people are as happy as they decide to be."  Happiness is a pleasant emotional state that results from the circumstances of our life.  We all have the inalienable right to arrange our circumstances to the best of our ability to maximize the probability that we will experience pleasure as a result.


    Did you know that there was some debate among the forefathers regarding the phrase "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"?  They were fairly well split for a time with the other side wishing to have it read "life, liberty, and property."  They understood property rights to be inextricably linked to happiness.  Ownership, title, stewardship, control of our surroundings - maximizes our chance at happiness.


    So where am I going with this?  I was thinking about my own happiness of course.  I have control of a great many "servants,"  I am a happy woman when they are all busy working for me.  My happiness in part depends on my own diligent supervision of these "servants."  I play a game called  "how many "servants" I can boss before 9:00 AM".  My day tends to go well if I can boss my washer, my dryer, my wheat grinder, coffee maker, oven, vacuum cleaner and dishwasher early in the morning.  If I do my part of the pursuit of happiness, then the happenings of my day tend to fall in line and I experience pleasure.


    What do you do in the pursuit of happiness?

Comments (17)

  • I try to get out of the house before the wife starts bossing.

    I never thought much about happiness. I did wonder about the meaning of life. So I looked it up in the dictionary. Somehow it was less than I had imagined.

  • Wheat grinder? You have a wheat grinder? I think I need to get out more...

    I think the pursuit of happiness gets us all in too much trouble at times...wonder why it doesn't pursue US instead?

  • I open my eyes in the morning.

  • I am slowly learning not to pursue happiness, but to find it in what my life holds.  Some of the worst times of my life have turned out to be my most satisfying.  To me, that equates to happiness.

    Not easy.  Not even a little bit.

  • I think it's interesting to compare what I thought made me happy twenty years ago to what makes me happy now.  (Remember, I'm an old woman of 42, LOL).  My happiness has changed so much over the years...simpler things make me happy now.

    My favorite "happy" is some of the neat stuff my kid says, and catching glimpses of the personality of the man he is in the process of becoming.  Another favorite "happy" is making stuff.  Crocheting a tote bag or something.  And fixing stuff, like repairing a zipper to get more use out of a perfectly good garment that otherwise would've had to be thrown away.

    If someone had told me twenty years ago that those things would be enough to make me happy, I would've said they were nuts.

  • I try to just be happy with what I have and where I am and what I am doing at that moment... and as for the phone - I tried telling my b/f  that could happen and he just laughed.. well, this will show em - luckily nothing else was damaged!!

  • I no longer pursue happiness which depends on circumstances, but contentedness which depends on me.   Spot

  • I commented last night when Xanga went on the blink.  I felt like a hapless goober.  You know, after I got the cussed for a few minutes?    I pursue happiness by chasing the dragon...um, I mean avoiding the dragon.  I am happy when the words do what I want them to do.  I pursue happiness by.... hm.  By finding a happy balance between illogical and practical.  Whatever that means.

  • I guess I'm just a simple sole. It makes me happy to live in a safe country, to know that I'm offering my children a decent present and future, to have my Sunday Friends. It doesn't take much.

  • "matched" socks make me happy

    Seriously, there are a lot of things that I once thought equalled happiness for me - certain friends, monetary goals, the 'right' house .... what I have realized is that all those don't mean shit if I don't like who I am.

    It is a struggle for me to try to become a person that I would like to be friends with.  I have a lot of 're-programming' to do.

    Maybe one day I will know "happy" too.

  • New shoes make me happy! 

    Actually I am a happy person most of the time - it takes a lot to get me down.  I have to say that being me and having my life being happiness. 

  • I'm happy if I'm successful speaking love to my loved ones.

  • I'm happy when I Choose The Right.  It's a "reap what you sow" kind of thing.

  • If I can get the voices in my head to stop pestering me and talk quietly amongst themselves... I'm happy.

  • I fulfill my purpose by writing and creating.

  • I'm happy when I can talk to intelligent people and drink a Jones soda. Watching a good movie, or reading an excellent book (right now "Alias Grace" by Margret Attwood), or being with friends all make me happy. Simple makes me happiest of all.

  • you KNOW who I do in pursuit of happiness...

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