Are you happy? Ask yourself this question. "Am I Happy"
If your answer is "No" then when are you planning to be happy? In the near future? How about when you retire and can travel? Maybe when you get that big house or the newer car?
I've been thinking about happiness lately because as much as I've been moaning and groaning about my leg it dawned on me that I'm really happy. I'm a happy little chickadee. Granted, I'm all moody because of my leg but that's a temporary surface sadness. It doesn't permeate the innate feeling of well being that I have internally and all the time. Somehow I'm just as happy working as I am not working and I'm happy when I live in an apartment as well as when I live in a house and this is not a new thing for me. I remember being happy as a little lark when I lived in a trailer as a child and felt the same happiness when we moved to a house. I don't ever remember being unhappy with life or wanting for more in order to be happier.
What has brought this rant on, you may be asking. Well a memory surfaced the other day. In the 90's I worked briefly in as a clerk in a union run factory. The men worked their butts off. They rarely took time off to be with family. Their lives revolved around the union and the contract and how much they could save back for retirement. They had big send offs for the men who were retiring. The guy would sit there, old and haggard looking with a watch and smile. People would sing and eat cake and the guy would say, "It's time to travel."
Here's the rub. The whole time I was thinking, 'Umm...really? This is what all that work was for? You just had neck surgery, 2 heart attacks and your kids are all gone. Travel is really what you worked for all these years and in your condition? THIS is what you wasted your youth on?'
I know this sounds cynical but it that was reality and that's what my head was swimming with at the moment.
How many people are waiting until they retire to begin their lives in the hopes that they will suddenly become happy?
I've listened to my mother in law in painfully deep conversation about how a million dollars at retirement will not be enough because we will need health insurance. I've seen the commercials with senior citizens sitting on the beach in their old age happy as a lark.
I don't understand it.
What am I going to do with aching joints and hardening arteries on a beach? Will I really want to go out in the hot sun to sit in sand? What is the thrill about traveling when one is old and achy? Am I really going to want to walk all over London and France? Umm... Nope!
Today is the day to be happy. Today is the healthiest many of us will ever be. Our family is with us, we can see them everyday in our home and we have warm beds to sleep in while we dream fancy dreams and have food in our tummy. Today is the day for Contentment and happiness. Why dream of tomorrow when it may never come or worse it comes and lets you down big time. Why wait and plan to be happy tomorrow?
Here's a question for you. Why do some people think that happiness will magically come when we travel to far off places to hang out in a community where the locals are dreaming of travelling to far off places like say...America?
What a bummer to work your whole life like a dog only to pay to be miserable in the rain on a crummy vacation to a far off place. Even if it's good weather is it worth the healthy days you spent in the office that could have been spent bonding and laughing with your family?
Happiness is right now. We're here. A bigger home, a stamped passport or thicker linens will not place happiness in our hearts. We have to grab it and hold it wherever we are, no matter our financial status or housing situation. We must live in the moment. Plans are fun. Travel is also a joy but I have to say that when I was in Maui or the Keys or Niagara Falls, I wasn't any happier than I am today or the day before I went. I was just plain old me sitting on the beach wondering if the bugs would stop biting soon.
Work is a necessity but it isn't our life. Our life isn't waiting, it's slipping on by. Better find that joy within ourselves, get out of the retirement fantasy and live while we can or tomorrow we may find ourselves with a nice little bank account and a big hole in the ground being dug just for us.
Hmmm...Happiness today or happiness tomorrow? I've never been much of a gambler.
The Mom With Brownies
1 comment:
Your post is so true. When I was pregnant and working in an office, there was a leathery man there that constantly checked the calender to see how many more truck payments until he could retire. I was counting down the days to leave for good when my baby was born. This was a place where cars were stolen and broken into all the time, and I wanted to tell the guy to ditch the fancy truck and go home. Afew months after my baby was born, I heard that this man had gotten sick and found out that liver cancer had taken over his body. He died not two weeks after the news. His truck was still not payed off.
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