Good Advice from Two Abes

"Selfishly seek joy, because your joy is the greatest gift you can give to anyone. Unless you are in your joy, you have nothing to give anyway". 

Abraham Hicks

I thought this might be a wonderful thought to take with you. Sometimes we feel "guilty" when we are happy and someone we know is not. This perspective helps with that interpretation.  I believe happiness  is contagious, a habit, and most importantly, what Abe Lincoln declared, a choice.

b u

p s

The Pursuit of Happiness

To begin with, as a foundation, I  need a spiritual self – one that truly believes in a higher power and one that insist that we are here to help others and to utilize the gifts we have for the betterment of the whole, for me that is a given, it is my religion. But in matters beyond that, I have this idea that the two things that make us feel good at the end of the day, when we stop and access, are productivity and control.

Productivity is such a rewarding feeling – and the high from it is directly related to the challenge of the task. In my life, I relate it to the job of raising my children (the most important job in the world) or the completion of a painting or a column or pea seeds popping up from the freshly made garden. Some days, I feel productive just cutting the grass, some days I need more, but every day I need something – if I want to feel happiness. I need to feel productive and the more my productivity enhances the lives of others, the better I feel.

And control…I do not mean this in the negative sense – control freak – I mean this in the sense of being the captain of your ship. You have control of your life as opposed to being a raw piece of meat waiting for something to happen to you. I feel like I would like to scale down the possessions and the duties of my life as I get older – I feel this way because at some point I will not be able to do all that I do now; I will lose control…I will need a smaller life to feel a sense of happiness, a life I can control, less is truly more.

 This control feature, I believe, has a lot to do with preparation; it is a good idea to prepare for your life, to equip yourself with tools to navigate the dark alleys and the peaks of sunshine – for both, the ups and the downs of life, are inevitable and they will both set you on a course, point you in a direction and the more equipment you have the better your decisions and reactions.

So, there is my two bit philosophy. I am writing this raw this morning because it burst into my head when I looked at the mess in my kitchen. I realized that it was out of control and I was not very productive on the domestic front yesterday – this is a small insignificant example incapable of making me happy or sad but it did make me think of the bigger picture, the important one about my family and how I hope they are gathering tools.

That’s it, just an observation I wanted to share, something to ponder. We are all trying to find happiness and the feeling of contentedness but sometimes we look in the wrong places, sometimes we think we need to have more, do more, but sometimes having more and doing more cause you to lose control and you find yourself in an awkward spin that immobilizes you and then you lose productivity and that saddens you. Again, I have absolutely no qualifications to say what I just said, it is just an observation of my own life that I thought might be something to think about. Control and Productivity - something to strive for, perhaps.

Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one's self?

Ralph Waldo Emerson

b u

p s

Rising sun

There was a night this past week that caused me to feel a sense of pure joy – something happened, something was said, that seemingly came from “nowhere” to tell me a wish was coming true. I was talking to my son, Matthew, on the phone from Boulder. I was busy asking “20 questions”, how’s school, are you eating right, is it cold, etc. when he unexpectedly began describing the morning view from his apartment window. He told me about the sun rising over the Rockies and how it “motivated” him to begin his day and how wonderful it was to wake up that way each morning. In  that moment I had such a rare feeling of arrival, that something had “taken”, something worked, someone was listening. For me, and I emphasize, “for me”, this type of reveal means more than anything – people measure worth in many ways, this type of perception and appreciation is how I measure and for Matthew to express this intrinsic feeling to me means I have been granted my wish. I carried that joy around all of the next day and will reflect back on it when I need to – it is there. It is proof that they are listening, they are watching and their fabric is from the bolt that is you. It is beautiful but it is also a responsibility, the greatest of all.

I suppose that is how the universe works; just keep doing what you feel is right and in God’s time, you will hear, “Mom, you should see the sun rising over the Rocky Mountains”.

b u

p s

The Hours

 ‎"I remember one morning getting up at dawn... there was such a sense of possibility... and I remember thinking to myself, 'This is the beginning of happiness, this is where it starts and of course there will always be more.' It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning, it WAS happiness." - Clarissa Vaughn

I just had to post this - it is so thought provoking...

b u

p s

happiness

The morning is frosty, and good. It is good because my children are all happy and well. That has become my measuring stick since I have become a mother – my happiness is directly plugged in to their state of being – this is how my life will always be from now until the end. I struggle to even use the word ”happiness” – it is very amorphous and generalized. I am more comfortable using the word content or the phrase, at peace. I can determine where to place the bar on contentedness – I can customize it to fit my outlook and view of all things worldly. As evident in my writing, I am trying, and being pretty successful, at lowering the bar of materialistic/worldly concerns and trying to live my life in spirit. I have, because of this altercation, found myself “at peace” more often than not – I’m not buying into it. I cannot understand how I once lived any other way – I was sucked in by the propaganda that follows us around and tries to penetrate our spirit. It is so freeing to disconnect from that ball and chain but it becomes more difficult to connect with many aspects of society, hence the term, recluse. I am not there yet, but it could happen! I have been blessed with the love of the arts and I look forward to the waning time of tomorrow when I can fill my days with painting and writing and growing my own food – I hope those days will be given to me, I hope to  live in a state of peace. Anyway, the autumn air is chilly here and the season of commercialism is upon us – each year tops the one before. Where does it stop? I hope I have been able to instill in my children the value of developing themselves with challenges and intangibles and not relying on society’s morphed and materialistic measuring stick to tell them who they are.



b u

p s

kieffer pears and happiness

The kitchen was hot this midsummer  morning peeling Kieffer pears that had fallen from the tree, fallen from a strong furious wind in the middle of an extremely hot day – trying to cool off the planet but instead made a wreck of my fruit trees. So, here I am in mid-June with a bucket of premature pears. I left some on the ground for the hens – I’ll get them later in the eggs they lay – but I am putting most of them in a crisp or cobbler of sorts. It’s a wonderful summer morning – one I will remember in December when soup is on the menu and holiday anxiety is trying to sneak into my life. I think these mornings are the “times of my life”. I say this with an emphasis on “my”; I don’t include the lives of my family in this, for they are the “reason” for my life and have my total devotion and all of my heart. I say this to refer just to me, if there were just “me” – this would be my kind of happiness, very simple, very non-threatening, very organic living, living that keeps a slow pace that allows awareness and time to extend myself more. My twins were telling me about a study conducted on a college campus about a guy dressed up in a clown suit riding a bike through campus – and when asked if they had seen him, only a very small percentage had even noticed – too busy being “connected” to technology and stress. For that bit of time in the kitchen with my fallen pears, I am content and connected…

b still

p s

Miami Heat

I think I am happiest or most content when I think less, “think” meaning prejudge, assume, expect, anticipate – I group all of these words into a negative, toxic bundle. For me, they are destructive. The flip side is to be open to everything and expect nothing – this gives you freedom from stress and the path to some happy unexpected moments. I remember when my kids were little and something big was coming up – a birthday party, a trip, a new bike - my mom would always warn me – "don’t tell them too much". I get it now (thanks mom) – life is so much more enjoyable when it just happens. Each time I told them, they began to prejudge, expect, anticipate and guess what; their expectation was always greater than the reality of the situation – disappointment. Whereas, if they did not know and here we are on a plane to the Magic Kingdom WOW – happiness.. I remember a much anticipated trip to the Miami Metro Zoo when my oldest was 6. He waited restlessly to get there to see the white Bengal tiger – for some reason, this was fascinating to him. He thought about it , we talked about it, it was paramount -  well, the day we made the long trek to south Miami to see this very new zoo and this exotic tiger was one of the hottest on record and the allusive tiger did not come out of his den! Disappointment…1000 miles from home in the Miami heat. His younger brother, on the other hand, had no expectations and whatever he saw was just great for him! His day unfolded and he was happy with those unexpected gifts of his day. My mother in law used to have a little phrase for this – “anticipation is greater than reality”. I have found this to be true most times.That's why we don't like to tell someone about something "good" that is about to happen, we might "jinx" it - no, you won't "jinx" it but what you will do is start prejudging it and in your mind, it will always be flawless and greater than the reality it will become. I suppose it's just a "glitch" we have - a defense to only allow our thoughts about our future to be "perfect"??

 So, I set forth on this journey of my day with as little anticipation and expectation as possible – I have to work on this – and I hope to, at the end of my day, have experienced and more importantly, noticed, the gifts that are there for me. I hope to carry this even further into a metaphysical realm and not prejudge the people in my life, not determine how “I” think they should be and instead, not only  accept, but celebrate  who they “are” , their true, beautiful, just like God intended being, because , after all, I am just the co – pilot; I have no credentials to fly this ship alone.

b u

p s

attitude

Today was one of those days that filled me up with some sort of peacefulness. Maybe it is because it is June and life will slow down for me for the next few weeks or maybe it is because I just shifted my attitude slightly and made a  choice to see ONLY the good in my life. It is a theme that I have been following lately, an effort to devalue many many things and in doing so I have found contentedness that I have not felt since childhood when my world was so small and narcisstic. That is where I try to stuff myself, in a small world , one where the outside does not really matter – I am not meaning apathy about “the world”, the planet, humankind, but matters of human weakness kind of stuff – like, it doesn’t matter if the kitchen is not clean when I go to bed or if I spilled bleach on my pants or if the backdoor is really old and needs repair and paint (it does) or if I don’t get the grass cut today or tomorrow  or if my neighbor’s kid just got elected president or if I have a new wrinkle  - doesn’t really matter does it? Who cares? I am sorting through things and deciding what I should give time, minutes and hours of my very finite life, to. The answer is easy really – people and for me, my art – people I love and people who come into my life because they need something from me – that’s it – nothing else matters –  I’m not just referring to “things” – it’s situations also that rob me of time, situations that are really superficial and should not hold value. I look back and I can embarrass myself over some of the things in my youth that upset me or caused me concern. Oh well, this is true rambling – it’s late at night and I told myself, and you, that I would make a big effort to write this summer and I am. This entry is so loose and hard to follow; random is the word to use here, but I am celebrating being “chill” – embracing summer and the essence of its spirit. There will be time enough later to rush and scurry –

“So quick bright things come to confusion” Shakespeare from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

He reminds us how quick and fragile these happy moments can be. I will make it a point to find more of them; they are there if we don’t look to compare and if we push out the darkness by allowing the light to come in. It really is all about attitude…



b u

p s

instructions

walk towards the sunshine and the shadows will fall behind you.

We all know this, but I know I need a reminder now and then. I need to stop occasionally and gather all of my gifts and lay them out on the table in front of me and count them. As I count them, I need to understand how lucid and fragile they all are and how I should cherish them with each minute I possess them, for just as they have been given to me, they can be taken from me. I need not look far to see my blessings nor do I need to look hard to see how I might share them.

b u

p s