Happy New Year

January 1, 2018

Greetings from where I smile,

Happy New Year.  For the next week or so we will exchange this wish with the people we meet, for many it will be as innocuous as ‘have a nice day’.  I want to wish you a Happy New year with something more behind it.

I’ve read a lot about happiness and given it a lot of thought.  I don’t have a secret formula, but the common themes I’ve learned about and witnessed seem to center on:  Close relationships, meaningful work, the opportunity for growth, purpose beyond ourselves, a connection with nature, an active physical lifestyle.  There are a host of daily ‘habits’ that support these kinds of directions, and there are deeper, more philosophical paths that will put down roots that sprout happiness. 

It’s more than just this.  Being happy is not just the giddy feeling you get from seeing your best friend, or playing with a puppy.  It is also more than merely being content.  Happiness is the result of intention, and understanding of what brings you this elusive thing, and what you have to do to get it.

It is rarely a constant condition.  To borrow from the philosopher G. Sheehan, speaking of something similar: “Excellence is not something attained and put in a trophy case. It is not sought after, achieved and, thereafter, a steady state. It is a momentary phenomenon, a rare conjunction of body, mind, and spirit at one's peak.” 

There are many things that will come to us that will make us feel happy.  Friendships, love, sunrises, a really good cup of coffee.  But the majority of it is up to us. Every day we have to earn it.  It is up to each person to identify what brings us happiness and what it takes to own that.

Meeting new people.  Reading a great book.  Time alone.  Learning something.  Time with family.  Sharing.  Telling a story.  Writing.  Running. 

Yesterday I was getting ready to go for a run.  I was spending a LOT of time getting ready.  This was due to the fact that it was 8 below zero outside.  I was collecting all the running clothes I owned before I braved the cold.  But really what I was doing was avoiding it.  I was dreading twelve miles bundled up with all this weight.  Muttering about my hamstring and my shoes and the wind and how tired I was.  Eventually I said these words out loud:

‘What you want is not coming to you in your kitchen.  Quit thinking about it and go get it.’

It was zero degrees.  None degrees.  It was so cold we stopped assigning a number we could think of and made up a negative number.  The air was trying to get at me and change me from 98.6 to zero.  I felt it slip in between smallest places and stab at me, some alien force intent my destruction.

I ran in the dark, the moon had already given up it was so cold, and ran off to the west coast.  From under my balaclava I watched the ice form around my eyes.  I trudged over snow and ice, my Yaktrax squeaking on the frozen ground, little complaints from each step.  Twelve miles, raking in frigid air, squeezing oxygen out of it and puffing out clouds of white, pushing each stiff muscle to do something it would rather not.

Eventually the muscles warmed, and the body did what it is meant to do.  The miles eroded behind me, time passed as it always does.  I finished running into a rosy grey sunrise, and turned down my street, alive and awake and ravenous.  The feeling that came to me then was more than endorphins.  It was more than relief from the end of struggle. 

When I came back in the house I was happy.  I knew it too.  One of my favorite lines from the movie ‘Pursuit of Happyness’ underscores the uniqueness of this moment, when Chris Gardner pushed past unbelievable odds and earned the job he desperately needed.  Tears in his eyes, walking among a sea of strangers, clapping to himself;  “This part of my life, this part right here? This is called 'happiness'.”

This might not be what you wanted to read this morning, so maybe you should set this aside until you are ready.  But understand this, I am wishing you a Happy New Year, and it comes with a cost. 

We need to be open to what happiness is brought to us.  The people who love us, the moments that are shaped for us by nature or authors or baristas.  We need to be aware that when we share ourselves, give our gifts, that in that moment we are also presented with that same joy, if we only keep our heart open to know it.  A thousand moments in every day if we foster the awareness for them, and therein awaits our greatest potential.

And we need to know that whatever happiness we forge in any day, it is up to us.  On some days it will only be there if we create it.  Make the challenges an adventure, shake off the setbacks, choose to look toward what will make you smile.  In every day construct the potential for your happiness and it watch how it will fill your life.

Happy New Year.

Hope this finds you smiling back,

David

Copyright © 2018 David Smith