It's 9AM
It’s simple, really, she said.
Are you happy?
And I didn’t answer fast enough.
Happy is one of those things that feel like it belongs to a different generation.
I think the great philosophers sat around and tried to define it.
What is happiness?
Is it laughing at an old Eddie Murphy stand up routine?
Is it watching kids play baseball with a crushed Coke cup in a pick up game while their older brothers are on the field?
How about remembering a favorite sandwich from when you were a kid?
Is happiness like art?
I don’t know what it is but I know it when I see it.
Or I know what I like.
Because the philosophers both great and small agreed that they couldn’t define happiness, but that it was different for everybody.
One thing that makes me happy is reading a good book.
But I live with someone who would describe that as torture.
She likes reality shows.
I find them excruciating.
I’d go for a long run every weekend if I could, just hours alone with my thoughts and the sun.
A lot of people think that’s nuts.
Maybe Forrest Gump said it best.
Happy is as happy does.
I heard a guy say once that we don’t really have a “right” to “happiness.”
We have an obligation to be better humans, and if doing that creates happiness, it’s a great side effect.
I think about the things that made me happy as a kid.
A lot of it involved friends and playing.
I think about the times I’ve been most happy as an adult.
A lot of it involved playing.
And friends.
Which makes me wonder if the great philosophers spent too much time debating and not enough time playing.
It couldn’t really be that simple.
Nothing ever is.
Except…
I think about a book.
Words on a page that make a movie in my mind.
There’s really nothing complicated about it.
I think about all the things that make me happy now and it feels like most of them involve a form of playtime.
So maybe the key to happiness is more playtime.
This past weekend we went for a walking adventure.
It started with brunch on the far side of downtown, then a walk across the river to a neighborhood on the other side of town so we could see the new houses being built on the River Trail.
Then a walk back to a pub in Argenta, followed by more walking to the East Village for a drink and an afternoon snack.
Topped off with another walk along the Riverfront Park and a stop in for a topper at Flying Saucer.
Eight hours in the sun and wind, with stops for food and beer and people watching.
Playing.
One of the adult versions anyway, though many of you may have called something else playtime.
Which is more fun than walking but what are you going to do for the other seven hours and fifty seven minutes!
When I think of some of my best times as an adult (the above mentioned three minutes not included) I think of times when I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.
Or tears ran from the corners of my eyes.
Usually with friends.
And accompanied with phrases like, “stop playing!”
The day to day drudgery of work now is monotonous because I don’t have anyone to play with.
Just the stuff going on in my head and the occasional song.
But time flies by faster when the boogie music tells me to get down or Stevie Wonder starts to sing.
Who among us can’t be happy listening to Superstitious?
So now we set a challenge.
It’s a thirty day month and every month with thirty days is a great time to start a challenge or build a habit or do something you’ve never done before.
The challenge is this.
For the next thirty days, work to be happy.
If it’s one thing just for you just to make you smile, do it.
Find more ways to add laughter to your life.
Thirty days of finding and listing and doing the things that create that feeling in your soul that the philosophers found hard to define.
It will be a tough challenge, I know.
After all, we have our eternal enemy traffic to contend with.
Dumb politicians, dumb ideologies, dumb newscaster and doom scrolling.
Everything in the world designed to make us worry and care and scare BUT…
What if we focus on being happy?
Root beef floats on summer days, and baby goats hopping on hay, and baseball boys chanting “Hey batter, batter, hey!”
This is my challenge.
My Everest for the month.
To do more that makes me happy and smile.
A simple thing.
What’s your favorite happy memory?
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