What Makes You Happy?

I felt bad about last week’s post in not finding a positive emanating from our current federal government.

So, I thought some positives were in order.

The one thing most important that we expect from our federal government is to protect our freedoms as individuals and to keep us safe on the world stage. We also expect it to be smart and fiscally responsible. When those things are woefully missing, we tend to think about fixing that before anything else. We feel the need to ensure we have a solid foundation represented by our government so we can exercise our ‘pursuit of happiness.”

At the same time, when we think about positives, we need to look inward, at ourselves, and not outward at others.

Which brings me to the question posed by the title of this piece – what makes us happy? One of the things that doesn’t is when our national government oversteps its bounds and hits hard on our pocketbooks.

But what are the other things we look to for happiness?

Here’s my list of the most important:

Good Relationships. Our friends make us happy. Our spouses, our kids, our parents and our family can all make us very happy campers.
Our Paying Job. I could put this in words like ‘career.’ But we do know ‘hating’ our jobs can be an albatross negatively affecting our attitudes and outlooks – not to mention job performance.
Kindness. We remember when people – especially people we don’t know – are kind to us. On the other side of the coin, performing an act of kindness, even if it’s a simple thing like holding the door for another makes us happy. Random acts of kindness are happy times – both ways. It’s the Good Samaritan parable.
Accomplishment. Successfully accomplishing a difficult task or project gives us a sense of satisfaction, i.e., happiness. We’re proud of ourselves, especially when that project was difficult – at least for us.
Optimism. Is the glass half empty or half full? I think optimistic people ‘pay less’ for enthusiasm than others do for pessimism. I know it’s more fun for me to be around an optimist.
Sharing & Caring. We’ve all heard words “that person would give the shirt off their back.” This goes beyond the ‘kindness’ category previously indicated. People willing to spend their time and resources with others, their neighbors and their community not only make a lot of friends, but they also feel good about themselves – happy.
Gratitude. When the persons or persons for whom you’ve done something to help expresses thanks and appreciation to you, it makes a positive impression on you. It helps make us want to do it again – which only adds to our happiness.
Independence. Another way of describing this might be self-determination. It involves the freedom to live as one chooses, or to act or decide without consulting or complying with another or others. When we’re not dependent on others for the way we feel, what we say or how we act, we’re happier.
Tolerance. This is about accepting others with different ideas about what’s good and bad, right and wrong, fair vs. bias. When we’re happy to acknowledge others may have arrived at different conclusions about various subjects than ourselves. It doesn’t mean we shun them but accept and respect them with and for the same rights as we have. To do otherwise does not lead to happiness, conflict does not lead to happiness – for either person or persons.

These are top of mind to me. Feel free to add to or subtract from the list as I’m sure you have other things to make you happy.

If one dwells for a moment on the things that make us happy, we realize that those things do not include ideology, political partisanship, or control over anyone other than ourselves.

Again referencing last week’s failure on my part to find a positive in the current federal government scenario does not mean I, or you, need to be unhappy. There’s much more to our lives than the constant ‘crisis’ situations we’re told about daily by our politicos and the media. At least there should be. To do otherwise with our emotions is to be controlled.

What can I say?

Live your own life the way you want to and the way(s) it works to enjoy yourself – and be happy.

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Have a great and prosperous week.

Hug somebody.

SPIDER Bites

This week’s trivia question is: Who is the villain in “Peter Pan”? Answer to last week’s trivia: Herman Melville’s classic 1851 novel Moby Dick opens with the line “Call me Ishmael.” As you may recall, the story is written from Ishmael’s perspective in observing Captain Ahab searching for the white shark named Moby Dick that previously had bit off his leg.

Florida U.’s golf team claimed the national, Division I golf championship by beating Georgia Tech last week.

Hurricane season officially started for us last week. Predictions are all over the map. Who knows?

A healthy May jobs report gave a boost to the stock market Friday. However, inflation is still affecting all sectors and people. Total employment remains 2+million below pre-pandemic numbers. What are those people doing?

The biggest non-news item last week was Congress passing a bill to pay for what it has already legislated to spend. The bill raises the debt ceiling to a scary $35T, which is expected to be reached in January 2025.

FBI Director Christopher Wray, faced with a contempt of Congress citation, agreed to meet with Congressional leaders re: a possible criminal scheme via son Hunter involving then-Vice President Joe Biden.

5 of the 40 teenagers who beat up 3, on-leave marines on a CA beach last week were arrested. Now kids are into the crime wave. BTW, Chicago had a great Memorial Day w/e with 9 killed and 50+ injured in the shooting sprees that unfortunately have recently benchmarked the city.

Last week Alabama joined 9 other states that have taken up the “fair” paradigm of banning transgender women from competing with women in sports competition in schools through college. 33 ‘woke’ states allow it.

A new study released by Columbia U. indicates the less burning of fossil fuels will actually increase the earth’s temperature by exposing us to more heat from the sun. In other words, the less heat-trapping CO2 in the air will be more than offset by the increased exposure to the sun’s rays. I think that’s called a paradox.

Why do the LGBTQIA+ advocates want to put their ideas and behaviors in our face? Isn’t civil acceptance and tolerance enough?

On a lighter note, a 14-year-old Floridian won the National Spelling Bee by spelling “psammophile” – that was after spelling bathypitotmeter, aegagrus, schistorrhachis and perioeci. I thought our spelling bees were in English.