“Some people are happy and other people are just not happy” He goes on to tell me. “I believe that happiness is not something you can achieve, its something that you feel as a result of things in your life that you are not in control of, if you are lucky, you feel happy.”
“Good luck with that!” I tell him, I go on, “For me it’s totally not like that anymore. I used to live thinking like that but I learned that there are some activities that I can do to make me feel happy. When I do not do them, most of the time, I don’t feel happy.”
He looks intrigued, “Are you telling me that you are in control of your own happiness? Sounds too good to be true.” He looks away and thinks about all the times in his life where if that was true, he would avoid so much heart ache. “What about when someone dies. You won’t feel sad?”
“I will feel sad that I lost someone I care about, but It won’t take my life over and make me depressed for the next year.” I go on ”There is one thing to miss someone and feel sad that they are no longer around. Its another thing feel so upset about something that you can not function. For me when I live my life a certain way, I find that I get over things much quicker and although there are upsetting circumstances that happen, my happiness is always available when I want to feel it.”
“Tell me your secret, I want to know it.” He looks at me with his menacing eyes.”I probably won’t buy it but I still want to know how you feel happiness all the time.”
“It’s a lot simpler than you think. People ask me how I did it, How I lose 75 pounds. I simply tell them, I did what I knew I had to do, to get the results I wanted to get. I stopped eating cookies, drinking soda, eating sugary treats. That means no more jelly beans, or donuts. All the foods that I thought would make me happy, they were actually doing the opposite. They were giving me highs and lows.”
I saw he was not buying it, so I just figured i’ll tell him what I know and not really care, cause it does sound weird. Maybe there will be a chance that he will try it and feel happy. Here goes!
“It’s more like a science to me. Happiness is about what you do with your mind and body to get it into a certain state. When I sleep well, eat the right foods, get my blood flowing with exercise, drink enough water, stretch properly my body feels happy. When I think positive thoughts, express my creativity by writing, singing, dancing, painting, meditate and create clarity in my life by journaling, my mind feels happy. When I do nice things for other people and treat everyone around me with amazing love and respect, when connect with a higher purpose by learning and praying, my spirit feels happy. When I do all them together, I enter a state of happiness. Its pretty consistent.”
He laughs and tells me that it’s sounds nice but it’s not practical. Life just gets in the way and you can’t live your life in a fairy tale. Plus it sounds like it’s hard work to do all those things. Probably not worth the effort.
I smile and tell him he is right. Because if luck is what is working for him, that makes him right. I would rather be happy than right. I would rather work hard and leave getting lucky to those that need it.
Joe Apfelbaum
Ajax Union
