Happiness

I once read an essay that was actually about organizing and cleaning your home, but really was about happiness. It said, "...and happiness will simply settle softly on your shoulder." Well, it wasn't that, verbatim, and my version is unintentionally more alliterative, but you get the picture.

I have found that there is no secret to happiness, no magic formula or luck of birth or genetics that leads to it (although I am ruling out serious biochemical problems). Happiness, as I define it, is loving yourself, liking yourself, and finding joy in everyday living. It has taken me half a century of work to get here, and while I am not happy all day every day, I can say that for the majority of the time, I am a happy person.

There is always something to appreciate--be it a sunrise, the snow gently falling, the cut of a favorite pair of pants, the way a certain color makes you look, the taste of fresh bread or a perfectly ripe strawberry.

We have come to expect so much of life that happiness becomes more and more elusive, as we associate it with perfection and material things. I have been trying to let go of these external, artificial measures of happiness, and to instead opt for a comfort in my skin and an appreciation of myself as a good and productive human being. That's living well, and happily.