Living Happiness

There’s a room in our house that hardly anyone ever talks about.  None of my Feng Shui books mention it, even though all their articles assume it.  My Style & Statement book doesn’t mention it, although it takes for granted that I have it. And if you were to look at the blueprint for our house, you wouldn’t be able to find it anywhere.

The strange thing is I know I’m not the only one who has this room, because everyone else I know has it, too.  You have one in your house.  And you – yes, you over there – you’ve got one in your flat.  Even you, Mr. Bedouin, you’re probably packing yours up with the tent every time you head out for the next camp.

This room has a name, though.  I’ve heard it talked about in hush-hush circles, so I’m sure (despite its ephemerality) that it exists. It’s called The Room for Improvement.

I don’t know what yours looks like but my Room for Improvement is strewn with self-help books, fashion magazines, bank statements, old report cards, “sensible” meal plans, and too-small clothes.  In the corner is a shrine to religious texts (the Torah, the Bible, the Koran, the teachings of Buddha) and on the walls are photos of other people’s perfect lives.  The windows look out onto everyone else’s perfectly-mown green grass.

Depending on the day, this room of mine may be the size of a closet or it may be the size of a mansion.  When it’s the size of a closet, I don’t spend too much time here.  But when it’s the size of a mansion, I can wander in and get lost for hours days.

On the days when it’s closet-sized, I don’t mind going in, taking a peek around, and taking out what I need (if anything). But on the days when it’s any bigger than that (often), me going in spells trouble: I am sure to walk out in abject despair.

My Room for Improvement does a really good job of reminding me of all that I’m not … yet.  If only I could do this one more thing or manage this one more that, then I would be okay.  But this room relies on mirages, on the illusion that, just around the next corner, all will be well.  It does so by relying on its concave mirrors that line the walls, fun-house mirrors that distort my efforts and only serve to heighten my anxiety as I look for a way out.  In some ways, this Room for Improvement is more like a Carnival Fun House … only it’s anything but fun and is just one more reason why, when it’s not merely closet-sized, I can get lost in it for hours days.

To be honest, I would be glad to be rid of this Room.  Something tells me that even if it were “officially” mentioned in the Feng Shui books, it would probably be in the section on “What Not To Build” into your home.  And I have a feeling this is true of my style & statement book, as well.

On the other hand, what would I do without this Room that reminds me that there’s something more to strive for, that this isn’t the end of the road?

Would I still strive without this Room?  Would I still keep trekking away on life’s journey?  Or would I just stop and pitch my tent by the roadside, hang some neon lights, and start selling gaudy souvenirs?  Who knows.

It strikes me that maybe its time for a revolution in the architecture of my happiness, that the Room for Improvement doesn’t have to be the Room for Improvement any longer.  But could it be … might it be … a Room for Growth?

Already I feel myself excited about the plans.  Just the look of it will be different: pictures of me on the walls at all of the times where I’ve been most happy, pictures of loved ones and friends who have surrounded me and supported me, cozy sofas for sitting and dreaming, windows that look out onto present joys.  Candles of inspiration burn on side tables, soothing music from the song in my heart plays, and tucked around the room in beautiful, decorative boxes are my dreams, my hopes, my plans – some marked “open now” and others marked “open later.”

When I enter this room, I am reminded of all that I have already achieved, all that I already have, and all that is, therefore, possible.

It doesn’t stress me out, this room, not like the “other one.”  This is a place that I delight to visit, a place where I don’t get lost lose myself.  It is a place that, when I walk out of it, I walk out hopeful instead of hopeless.

The strange thing about this room is that, despite its beauty, I always seem to know, after I’ve been here for a while that I’ve been here long enough, and I stand up, take my leave, and politely reenter my world as I know it.

What about you?

What does/did your Room for Improvement look like?

Are you ready to revolutionize the architecture of your own happiness?

What would/does your Room for Growth look like?

Your thoughts and comments are more than welcome.

Just as you are,

Receive Living Happiness in Your Reader or via Email

or follow Living Happiness on Facebook.

Photo Credit Anna Gay

Today I am giving up, giving in, not doing it any longer.  Running that is.  Running in pursuit of happiness.  No more pursuit.   No more chasing.  I’m going to lie down right here in this field of wildflowers and let myself be.  Happiness, if it wants me, knows where to find me.  I’ll be finding shapes in the clouds and looking for ladybugs.

I think the Greeks would agree with me.  Their idea of happiness was that it just happens to you — you are granted favor by the gods, and often for willy-nilly reasons that no one can even explain.  Even Aristotle took time out from teaching his Golden Mean to admit, “Hey, I’m not sure if these things actually make a person happy, but perhaps they’ll help.”   The ancients must have been on to something.

Even now, happiness is one of those words that doesn’t really have a verb.  It’s not actually something we can do, even though it does sound nice when we say things like this to ourselves.  We can be happy.  We can see and experience happiness.  But do happiness?  It’s all in the word itself.  Happiness … from hap … which simply means “chance.”

This was true for the Latin word for happy: Felix (from which we get today’s word, felicitous) simply meant lucky.

And this was also true for the Greek word, eudaimion, which in its literal translation meant something like “good spirit,” something like what we might call today a guardian angel or a spirit guide.  To be eudaimion in ancient Greece, therefore, was to basically have the favor of your guardian spirit.

How to get or ensure this favor?   That’s what the old, sage philosophers –like Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato – were going on about: Which actions produce it?  What do I need to do to make my guardian angel favor me?

And over that subject there was a lot of debate, and still is, even to this day. And it’s probably from them that we get the whole idea that happiness can be found or earned somehow, rather than basically be something that just seems to … happen.

So what are we knocking ourselves out about? I sure as heck don’t know.

But I’m going to take my cue today from the ancients … and from actress Lindsay Duncan.

Lindsay is the lovely Katherine, an eccentric ex-pat living in Italy, in Audrey Wells’ film, Under the Tuscan Sun.  In one of my favorite scenes, she becomes exasperated with her friend Frances (Diane Lane) for all of Frances’ constant boohooing over whether she is happy or unhappy, and finally says to her:

I used to spend hours looking for ladybugs. Finally, I’d just give up and fall asleep in the grass. When I woke up, they were crawling all over me.

What she says is not all that much different from what Nathaniel Hawthorne, two hundred years ago, said either:

Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

So, if you’ll excuse me now, I’m tired of all this running.  I’ve got a field I want to go lie down in, with a patch of daisies calling my name.

Care to join me?

Ladybug wishes,

Receive Living Happiness in Your Reader or via Email

or follow Living Happiness on Facebook.

Photo Credit Jeff Kubina