Living Happiness

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

Bows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
~Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now

What do the clouds look like where you are today? Are they billowy, fluffy balls of cotton? Wisps of fairy floss high in the sky? Or armed giants come to wipe out the sun and bring torrents of rain? Or … have you noticed them at all?

The clouds here today are little toddlers on the horizon, peering up at the big blue sky and not sure if they are allowed to jump onto its big bed and play. I am secretly hoping they are allowed to jump around a bit and make big nuisances of themselves, but I fear I do not get a say in the matter.

Clouds have been cropping up for me all week: in the posts of online friends, in a morning newsletter, and even actually in another post of my own. It seems that, though wispy little things they are, they are definitely trying to get my attention.

And I think the reason is this: They want me to slow down. They want me to dream a little.

So, on this fabulous Friday (which I truly hope it is in your part of the world), I am going to ask you to do one simple, easy-peasy thing for me today … if you don’t mind: Would you go outside today and look at the clouds?

You can do it from your porch, from your front door, from the back garden, from the seat of your car. And if your clouds are behaving and you’re really feeling dreamy, you can do it lying in the grass. Maybe on a blanket. Maybe with a friend.

We’ve all occasionally forgotten what it is to stop and change our perspective. It’s amazing how different things look when we’re lying flat on our backs, looking up into infinity.

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time. ~J. Lubbock

Happy Friday, everyone!

Clouds love to shape-shift and transform themselves.

What shapes do the clouds take for you today?

In what ways would you too like to shape-shift and/or transform your life?

What did you see when you looked up into infinity?

Your comments are welcome.

Receive Living Happiness in Your Reader or via Email

or follow Living Happiness on Facebook.