Not So Grounded

Being Happy

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.

Timeless Value

[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.

Santa's Psychic

I just took the girls to their first psychic, my Christmas gift to my daughter, my niece, and my daughter’s best friend.   But let’s dispel any misconceptions that the trip started in some sacred way, complete with Enya music and New Year’s affirmations shared blissfully while passing a carved ceremonial totem.  Instead, the day began trying to roust three teenagers way too early on their last Saturday of vacation.  (Laurie went to bed at 2:00 am, Maddy and Lindsey even later.)  Maddy’s last-resort jeans (“Why can’t someone do laundry in this house!”) were evidently so baggy her “whole ass” showed if she bent down, which precluded her from cleaning up the mocha latte she accidently dropped to the floor.  Lindsey said breakfast was the second worst omelet she’d ever eaten in her entire life.  Laurie later complained I was asking her to get way too many things from my disorganized bag, that I should’ve pulled them all out before I started our two-hour drive.  Evidently, I took the mountain curves too fast, making them all nauseous.  Which made Maddy’s jeans feel too tight …

Thank god they fell asleep.

Of course, they turned angelic once we arrived: polite, interested, engaged, a bit nervous and eager at the same time.  As I suspected, despite their adolescent bitching they were genuinely into this. 

Peaceful Blessings to Fran Ostrow

One of my favorite people died tonight.  As a child I was lucky enough to have a warm, loving, supportive family AND my Aunt Fran.  Technically not a relative, our families intertwined early, fast, and solid -- my mother & she, her daughter & I ... best friends.  We shared carpools and birthdays, holidays and trips to NYC, boisterous games & hilarious cooking catastrophes.  I think I slept as often at their house as I did my own.  Even after we moved to different cities, her's was my extended family in all but genetics.

But it's more than just childhood memories and a sense of family.  Aunt Fran grabbed hold of me early, with unbounded love and a force of nature brand new to me.  She called things as she saw them, fearlessly packed a zillion children in her station wagon for excursions both tame & wild, welcomed a degree of happy chaos, disheveled countertops, and strong opinions that were utterly novel to me, coming from my calm Episcopalian life.  My family was just as loving, but Aunt Fran was way louder about it.  She laughed loud, she advocated loud, she loved loud, and she lived loud.  With opinions and beauty and just the right amount of exaggeration.  Without apologies.  She offered me another way to experience a family, to experience life, to experience myself.  And looking back, I realize just how important it is to have lots of different loving perspectives.  No matter how wonderful my family, Fran gave me a delightful new view I never would have seen otherwise. 

I haven't seen her often since my 20's and I'm terrible at keeping in touch.  But I have consciously honored her gifts to me my whole adult life, particularly my parenting years.  I embraced her happy chaos (not to mention her disheveled countertops) with glorious vengeance -- every single time I pack a zillion kids into my car or kitchen or whisk them on a wild road trip I offer Fran my gratitude.  And early on I promised myself to pay it forward, to offer unbounded love & support to the various children who come through my front door.  All are welcome in my house, which means my floors are always dirty & the noise-level deafening.  But those crowded, rambunctious moments are also my most joyful. And being brave enough to advocate for a child, especially one who's not biologically my own, has offered exponential gifts.  Fran taught me all that.  She welcomed me in the same way, nurtured & widened & improved my life immeasurably.  I will always love her dearly and be forever grateful.  And I wish her an eternity of peace. 

May the Night Pass Peacefully

My former sister-in-law is dying, not expected to live another full day.  At this moment she's unconscious and gasping very shallow and labored breaths.  My 20-year old nephew returned to Maryland around noon to join his maternal grandparents and uncle and one of his ex step dads as they sit quietly in her hospital room.  He has sent me the following progression of texts since he arrived ...

"I'm here but she's unconscious and I can't talk to her.

"I don't know how I can ever return to my regular life after this."  

When I suggested it's okay to just be, to just sit by her and just be ... and not to forget to breathe.  "Breathing is the hardest part.  She is so short of breath ..."

"This hospital room also doesn't make breathing any easier ... bad smell that just hurts my chest ... I can't do it."

"She is kind of talking and she seems to be responding to my thoughts." 

"I want to do something as a vacation as soon as I am done with this.  See something I haven't seen, learn about a little place ..."

"I think I've come to terms with my mother's inevitable death."  When I asked if he wanted to share anything,

"Well, I changed the background and banner on my phone from "she never smiled ..." to "so may she smile now," and to a sunnier pic."

It's been a few hours, my nephew's gone back to the hotel to sleep awhile. Our whole family -- scattered across the country -- is alert and since I'm exhausted to the marrow of my bones I'm going to sleep, too, knowing someone will call me if necessary.

But may the night pass peacefully for us all.