Welcome to my excuse to write. About big ideas, little moments, weird observations, or funny tidbits. I like to play with concepts, push and stretch 'em wide until they tumble headlong over a cliff. Thanks for joining the leap.
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Welcome to my excuse to write. About big ideas, little moments, weird observations, or funny tidbits. I like to play with concepts, push and stretch 'em wide until they tumble headlong over a cliff. Thanks for joining the leap.
Some people believe I am too happy. This has nothing to do with my very ordinary life, which is
not perfect or enviable or full of unique and miraculous things. Nor does it reflect my last couple of weeks where I've had a miserable cold, been working too much, and fighting with my husband. My flaw is that I am happy nonetheless.
It sounds ridiculous at first, like saying the sky is too blue, the falling
snow too magical. Is it possible one can be too happy?
I am rarely accused directly, for the underlying implications would be
rude to say out loud: being too
happy suggests I am overly naïve, unwilling to see life realistically, or too stupid to get it. I continuously grapple with two diametrically opposed
messages about happiness. Our
make-believe culture – fictionalized life in movies, tv, ads, music, Disney
World – portrays glossy smiles and silently suggests perpetual happiness is ideal
but unattainable. “Real” culture
-- in the news, talk and reality shows, documentaries, meaningful films --
typically describes unhappiness, highlighting pain, suffering, violence,
injustice, bitterness, or struggle.
Mindless movies end happy and sappy; award winners showcase the shadows,
sorrows, and trials of life.
The message is Happiness = Escape, Denial, and Fantasy. Unhappiness = Reality and
Awareness. Only the shallow or ill
informed could possibly stay happy.
Eyes wide open see the troubled Truth. If you’re not pissed off, you’re not paying attention,
the bumper sticker admonishes.
I get more confused because those “real” stories often end with personal
transformation, which I do value.
I am told over and over again that suffering inspires
growth. Happiness is an opiate,
dulling our senses, while sorrow transforms. Hitting rock bottom leads to self-discovery. Images of disaster victims or dying
soldiers awaken our otherwise dormant compassion. A crisis renews our troubled relationships. Very few of us have ever read
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, but his edict
is everywhere: what doesn’t kill
us makes us stronger.
Ironically science suggests that’s not really true. Happiness (feeling good about
our life overall) and positivity (feeling good about the current moment) actually
makes us stronger, or at least they’re linked to better health, relationships,
creativity, and even work outcomes. Those who identify themselves as happy,
optimistic, hopeful, or content seem to have lower incidence or severity of
cardiovascular and pulmonary disease, diabetes, hypertension, colds, and
upper-respiratory infections. When
we eat or have sex we release the brain chemical dopamine, which activates
feelings of pleasure; principles of evolution suggest pursuit of that joy
perpetuates our species. Research
shows positivity – collaborating, asking meaningful questions, exploring
opportunities -- dramatically
improves team performance. Psychologists say engaging with people and
activities most important to us and using our personal strengths to serve a
larger end – all life-enhancing acts -- makes us deeply happy.
Current research echoes what spiritual voices have sung for ages: problems and pain may sound an alarm,
but we truly evolve through joy, love, beauty, peace, creativity, compassion … happiness. We transform when we begin to rise from rock
bottom. We grow through forgiveness,
not the original injury.
Acts of compassion, not more acts of violence, unravel injustice. We are born to be happy, whether
biochemical impulse or spiritual seed.
As we age and acquire a more varied and complex life, being happy
becomes a personal choice, offered over and over again with each experience,
nurtured by commitment and habit.
Scientists, physicians, and sages from every tradition offer the same
advice. Every day, every moment,
explicitly, and with purpose … Be mindful. Be kind. Be grateful.
Spend time with those most precious, do work you love, and savor life’s
pleasures. Forgive and let
go. Take gentle care of
yourself.
I’ve had some wild runs the last few years – death, serious illnesses,
crashed relationships, shaky finances, loss, rapid-fire change … a good time to
test the theory and look for the joy.
More accurately, I’ve clung to joy like a blind woman stranded at sea
who hopes she’s grabbing a raft and not a shark. Every day, every moment, I try to find a joy groove, like
steering my tires along cleared tracks in the snow. Sometimes it’s easy – the traffic jam’s not moving anyway,
so I put on some great music. Sometimes
it’s uncomfortable – when everyone’s criticizing a political injustice that I,
too, abhor, it’s embarrassing to express compassion for all sides. Sometimes finding the positive is just
plain annoying, and I’d rather rant and rave after a tough day. Sometimes that
joy groove runs alongside pain in equal measure; sitting bedside with my nephew
in the hospital I forced myself to prompt the esoteric conversations we both
love, acting as if he wasn’t sick at all, even while I silently feared for his life.
And occasionally I must steer a gut-wrenching turn in the road, ending
relationships, leaving jobs, and changing beliefs when I’m faced with the
uncomfortable truth that they no longer serve me. Choosing happiness can be surprisingly hard, but every day I
still choose to do it.
Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson suggests a tipping-point – if we conjure
at least three positive thoughts or emotions to every episode of negativity, we
spark a cascade of greater positivity and, more importantly, better actual
results. In our relationships, our
work, our perceptions, and our day-to-day experiences. When I find the joy groove I seem to
step into the next moment, the next day, the next experience wiser, more
energized … and happier.
Truth is I prefer “happier.”
Maybe I am naïve or unrealistic or just plain stupid. Even so, I’ve decided there’s no such
thing as too happy.

I can't decide if Newsweek's grotesque photo of Oprah demonstrates that she has finally hit a mainstream nerve or that Newsweek is far more frightened about its future than I suspected.
Either way, this week's cover story confirms for me the magnitude of the intellectual and cultural shift sweeping this country. And the sad irrelevance of traditional publications.
I could certainly offer contrary facts, statistics, and stories to counter Newsweek's indictments against Oprah and her messages. But I'll leave that to others who, I'm sure, will flood Newsweek's mailboxes.
[An essay I published about a year ago ... suddenly remembered it after too many long work days & nights.] It’s 11:10 on a Thursday morning and I’m sitting with my husband in a cozy, local coffee shop listening to live music. Rhythmic and lyrical, Boubacar Diébaté plays a traditional instrument – wood shaft atop a round skin-covered base that’s part banjo, part drum. My husband and I share an overstuffed upholstered chair and a nut and raisin muffin. He doodles the musician’s likeness on a napkin; I casually write.
This is not what we typically do after dropping the kids at school, and I feel a quiet, ever-growing blanket of guilt unfold across my lap. Listening to beautiful music is not what one does at 11:10 on an average Thursday morning in our culture. Not on a workday. Not when there are projects to complete, clients to call, and bills to pay. I feel indulgent, and a little defiant. But mostly, I can’t stop eying the clock, wondering how much longer I can justify this temporary escape from what I’m really supposed to be doing.
Yet why do I feel guilty?
I can rationalize playing a little hooky. I’m self-employed so I can work anytime, as long as I get it done. I could easily label this a lovely, spontaneous change in routine, a justified “mental health break.” Aren’t we instructed to take an occasional time-out for pure enjoyment, to relieve stress and recharge for another round of productivity?
But I’m plagued with larger questions about the definition of time and its worth.
Bottom line: I do not get paid for listening to music with my husband. Technically it has no value in our economic system, a system that increasingly measures everything in our culture. So technically listening to music with my husband is worthless. This startling fact causes me to inventory other things that have no monetary value: raising our children, tending our homes, caring for our families, and nurturing our communities. Sure, those activities are revered. But fulfilling these vital responsibilities does not guarantee a woman food on the table or a roof overhead, let alone means to support her family, healthcare, and security in her old age. A woman may get paid for tending other women’s children, but doing so for her own – those she undoubtedly loves, understands, and can help the most – is essentially worthless according to how we compensate an hour of work. This seems backwards to me.
Admittedly sharing music and a muffin with my husband does not sound as noble as nursing an infant or caring for an elderly relative. But when I take money completely out of the picture – if I was independently wealthy or, better yet, if all our needs and desires were met outside the confines of monetary exchange – I truly believe nourishing my new marriage is far more important in the long run than any professional project I’m momentarily neglecting. I increasingly believe experiencing joy, expressing love, or listening to beautiful music is a better way to spend my time. For me, my family, my community, and the vibration of the world. This moment feels far better than the moment in my office from which I have escaped. I have a growing sense that feeling good in this way, sharing love and causing not an ounce of harm to anyone or anything, is also far more important. It seems to be the best use of my time.
Paul Hawken suggests there are actually four different types of “time.” Commerce-time is about innovation and change, perpetually moving fast and rewarding those who keep up. And it’s all about money. Governance-time creates the things that give us structure – governments, religions, and systems of economics, education, or health. It moves slower than commerce, with predictability and consistency its main currency. Culture-time moves even more slowly, rooted in deep, long-held beliefs and anchoring our identities and sense of belonging. Its currency is safety, nurturance, living our true potential, and love. The slowest of all is earth-time, a natural flow that lasts far longer than generations of human life and changes at a snail’s evolutionary pace. Instead of dollars, it deals in resilience and sustainability.
Hawken warns we have let commerce-time run amok. We are thrown into a breathless frenzy dictated by lightening-fast market economies, forgetting that time isn’t just about money. Time also marches to three other drummers, and we’d be wise to restore balance among them:
“What makes life worthwhile and enables civilizations to endure are all the elements and qualities that have poor returns under commercial metrics: universities, temples, poetry, choirs, parks, literature, language, museums, terraced fields, long marriages, line dancing, and art. Nearly everything humans hold valuable is slow to develop and slow to change.” (Hawken, 2007, p. 134.)
As I sit in this coffee shop
listening to this beautiful music I can imagine millennia of ancestors sharing
a similar experience, sitting on prairies or mountains or coastal cliffs, as
musicians, storytellers, and communities gather around similar harmonies. Times when time itself moved
differently, and sharing legends about the woods had greater value than
clear-cutting the trees. Maybe I’m
romanticizing a past no longer relevant, or maybe I’m trying to justify my own
laziness. But sitting peacefully
still, enjoying something beautiful, and sharing it with my husband seem like
the most important – and should be the most lucrative – things I could possibly
do. And so tomorrow I will do them
again.
It's been a really weird couple of weeks ... my nephew is on his 3rd distinct hospital stay in less than a month, first with what turned out to be Crohn's, then 4 days in a cardiac unit with an irregular (without discernible reason) EKG, and now 103-temp without infection. Oh, plus, recurring panic attacks. Yet he says all these incomprehensible ailments seem to force him to do exactly those things that have always been most tough for him. He's texting me insights sometimes hourly.
I've come to believe reality's overrated.
Just posting my new piece in Verve.
I'm in San Antonio and besides the warm weather, riverwalk dining, prickly pear margaritas (the most luscious shade of bright pink), Lee Ann & I are teaching our annual management training. End of today we showed the first two segments of Marcus Buckingham's Trombone Player Wanted, (download parts 1 & 2 free on iTunes).
It always makes me cry. Not cause he's so adorably cute, dimpled chin, sky bright blue eyes and everything ... but 'cause he encourages, with passion unprecedented, that we all go with our strengths. Not our responsibilities. Not what we've grown into. Not even what we're good at. But what we knew age 5 and 8 and intensely 14 those few things that carried the blood through our souls.
Many many many thanks to Amy Lenzo at Beauty Dialogues for her fabulous blog help & advice! Responding to my out-of-the-blue email, she spent her Saturday morning giving me all sorts of cool tips & suggestions, not to mention adding the subscription feature to the right.
A neglected blog feels like the loss of my writing hand ...
Barack Obama: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (Vintage)
Jim Collins: Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great
Tom Atlee: The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Barbara Kingsolver: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life