Happiness

I’ve been thinking about happiness lately. What got me started was somebody in one of the blogs I read (I’m sorry, but I forget who otherwise I’d reference your blog) suggested reading, “Stumbling on Happiness” by Daniel Gilbert. When I’m done reading it I’ll write up a review for it on my book reading blog, but in the meantime it’s made me think. And, I like that.

Daniel Gilbert is a psychotherapist. He’s also down to earth. So, on the one hand where the book reads like a Sage (orator on stage) from the Michael teachings it is actually very instructive and entertaining. It asks the questions I have found myself wondering about off and on for years.

Just what exactly is happy? Is your happy the same as my happy? How can you say you are happy when you’ve hardly had any world experience?

Gilbert busies himself with explaining why our brains work the way they do. Why because we are still hardwired the same way we were thousands of years ago that we would flee before danger before we answer the question, “What the hell was that?” It’s just interesting as anything. At least, I’m interested.

Gilbert does not hesitate to use himself as an example. I think that’s sort of unusual for a writer to do that. I appreciate it. It sort of brings him closer to me. It makes me want to turn the page and find out what else this quirky guy is going to talk about.

Now, for my own thoughts about happiness. I can only talk about my own experiences. I am happiest when I am alone. I’m married. I’ve got 6 cats. I work. I deal with folks everyday, but I’m happiest when I am alone. Actually, I’m a writer and writers do what they do alone. So, it fits. Would this be happiness for somebody else? Probably not.

So, that brings up the idea that there are all sorts of happiness out there. It would just depend on who the person is.

Except, what about people who are happy under what we might consider to be absolutely rotten, miserable circumstances?

I talked to a lady yesterday who said that she thought in terms of there being happenings in a person’s life. She said everybody has things that happen to them throughout their lives, but there can be an underlying joy that shines forth through all the happenings. She said this explained to her why she would come across people who were grumpy and to her way of thinking she couldn’t figure out what they had to be grumpy about. And, that made sense to me too.

What do you think?