So Much Happiness by Naomi Shihab Nye

 http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/so-much-happiness/

So Much Happiness

Naomi Shihab Nye

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.
But happiness floats.
It doesn't need you to hold it down.
It doesn't need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records…..
Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.


I haven't posted a poem in a while, so here's one I read a while ago. I think Nye does a wonderful job of writing about how happiness feels, as much as you can explain it, anyway: how it "floats," then "lands on the roof of the next house," and "flows out of you into everything you touch." Isn't that so absolutely true?

Because it's an extra-special day (why not?), here's another quote:
"Poetry calls us to pause. There is so much we overlook, while the abundance around us continues to shimmer, on its own.”
-Naomi Shihab Nye
(found here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/naomi-shihab-nye)

To happiness flowing out of us into the world around us, and seeing the shimmering.

More on Frankl

See: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/theres-more-to-life-than-being-happy/266805/

"In his bestselling 1946 book, Man's Search for Meaning, which he wrote in nine days about his experiences in the camps, Frankl concluded that the difference between those who had lived and those who had died came down to one thing: Meaning."

"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing," Frankl wrote in Man's Search for Meaning, "the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

"In the words of Martin E. P. Seligman, one of the leading psychological scientists alive today, in the meaningful life "you use your highest strengths and talents to belong to and serve something you believe is larger than the self."

The pursuit of happiness seems to be a topic of near-universal interest. After all, doesn't everybody just want to be happy?

So we try, try, try. We pursue happiness. We go out and meet people and go on vacations and buy things and we might even read books about happiness. And yet...sometimes there is just that niggling feeling that something is missing. Maybe it isn't happiness, but meaning.

I don't mean to say that I believe happiness and meaning are mutually exclusive - I don't think that all - but I do think the article brings up interesting points about the pursuit of happiness versus the pursuit of meaning. I don't think that happiness is necessarily selfish; I think that doing something selfless might make someone pretty happy as well as bring meaning.

To finding meaning.

The Little Things by Carlos Bertonatti Lyrics

"If life has taught me anything,
it'’s all about the little things."
-Carlos Bertonatti, The Little Things

Things are going wrong left and right in the world. It's so easy to just sink into despair, isn't it? Complain. Scan newspaper headlines or turn on the evening news or just feel dissatisfied about your life, your job, how much money you make, how much you weigh, anything, everything.

What's the point, anyway?

Okay, I'm going to tell you right off the bat that I can't answer that question. But according to this song, Carlos Bertonatti thinks "it's all about the little things."

And I don't know if it's all about the little things...but well, the little things can certainly add up, don't you think? I know it's the same old same old (well, if your life is anything like mine) and you're trying to find joy and happiness and peace and fulfillment and all that jazz, but sometimes you look at a bright, vivid flower on a cloudy gray morning and as little a thing as it is, it's enough for that moment. Maybe for that day.

Maybe life is seizing as many of those little moments as you can, letting them go when they do, and being open to the next one. Open your eyes and really look...what do you see? I'm sure you can find at least one thing that is beautiful. Or funny or hopeful or all of the above. And if you can't, make something beautiful. Okay?

To the little things.

Oprah's 2008 Commencement Speech

(For the full transcript of the speech, see: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/june18/como-061808.html)

"...walk through life eager and open to self-improvement and that which is going to best help you evolve, 'cause that's really why we're here, to evolve as human beings. To grow into more of ourselves, always moving to the next level of understanding, the next level of compassion and growth.
And I believe that there's a lesson in almost everything that you do and every experience, and getting the lesson is how you move forward."

Self-improvement can sound kind of hokey. But if you really think about it, you're trying to make yourself a better person. Who care if it sounds hokey? I want to evolve as a human being, and always keep growing.

"When you're doing the work you're meant to do, it feels right and every day is a bonus, regardless of what you're getting paid.
 ...
And how do you know when you're doing something right? How do you know that? It feels so. What I know now is that feelings are really your GPS system for life. When you're supposed to do something or not supposed to do something, your emotional guidance system lets you know...If it doesn't feel right, don't do it. That's the lesson...There are many times when you don't know what to do. When you don't know what to do, get still, get very still, until you do know what to do."

I'm going to keep searching for the work I'm meant to do. So far, I've learned about the work I'm not meant to do. And you know what? That's part of finding what you are meant to do. 

"...forget about the fast lane. If you really want to fly, just harness your power to your passion. Honor your calling. Everybody has one. Trust your heart and success will come to you.
...
But having a lot of money does not automatically make you a successful person. What you want is money and meaning. You want your work to be meaningful. Because meaning is what brings the real richness to your life. What you really want is to be surrounded by people you trust and treasure and by people who cherish you. That's when you're really rich."

There are so many different definitions of success. Mine includes doing meaningful work. I want to be excited to go off to work in the morning and find my work meaningful and be interested in things. Not just what I'm doing, but in what other people are doing, in what's happening in the world at large. (It can feel small sometimes, but a lot of things can happen out there!)

"If things go wrong, you hit a dead end—as you will—it's just life's way of saying time to change course. So, ask every failure—this is what I do with every failure, every crisis, every difficult time—I say, what is this here to teach me? And as soon as you get the lesson, you get to move on. If you really get the lesson, you pass and you don't have to repeat the class. If you don't get the lesson, it shows up wearing another pair of pants—or skirt—to give you some remedial work.
 But, if you ask the right question—not why is this happening, but what is this here to teach me?—it puts you in the place and space to get the lesson you need."

I'd like to approach failures this way. I need to work on asking what lessons are in the failures.

"This is what I know for sure: In order to be truly happy, you must live along with and you have to stand for something larger than yourself. Because life is a reciprocal exchange. To move forward you have to give back. And to me, that is the greatest lesson of life. To be happy, you have to give something back. ...if you're hurting, you need to help somebody ease their hurt...
...helping others is the way we help ourselves."

I completely agree. Okay, this is going to sound kind of silly, but I helped someone find a book at the library yesterday, and it made me feel pretty happy. Yes, it's a very small act (I didn't cure cancer or facilitate peace in the Middle East or anything like that), but I helped someone when I could have chosen not to. I didn't know him. I don't work at the library. But I took the time to help him and honestly, I improved my day and his. So go out there and help someone find a book or something. Improve your day and someone else's.


"So, I know this—that whether you're an actor, you offer your talent in the way that most inspires art. If you're an anatomist, you look at your gift as knowledge and service to healing... if you choose to offer your skills and talent in service, when you choose the paradigm of service, looking at life through that paradigm, it turns everything you do from a job into a gift."

Whatever you do, think of it as a gift.

To finding the lesson, honoring your calling, and helping others.

Daddy-Long-Legs (by Jean Webster) Review

The book is mostly written in letter format, so I thought I'd review it in the same format.

Dear Reader,

I loved this book. I really did. It was charming and sweet and witty. Very heartwarming. Another book to curl up with when you could use a little cheering up (I seem to be especially fond of these books).

Judy Abbott is an orphan who is unexpectedly given the opportunity to attend college. Her mysterious benefactor only has one requirement, that she writes a letter to him once a month updating him on her progress. Judy is quite the correspondent - she writes much more often than once a month and she really fills Daddy-Long-Legs (her nickname for the benefactor, since she only caught a glimpse of his long legs) in on her days at college.  

The letters are funny and irreverent and just delightful to read, but there is a more serious side to Judy, too. She gets downright philosophical sometimes. She writes in one letter,

"It isn't the great big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones - I've discovered the true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now. Not to be for ever regretting the past, or anticipating the future; but to get the most that you can out of this very instant...Most people don't live; they just race. They are trying to reach some goal far away on the horizon, and in the heat of the going they get so breathless and panting that they lose all sight of the beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through; and then the first thing they know, they are old and worn out, and it doesn't make any difference whether they've reached the goal or no. I've decided to sit down by the way and pile up a lot of little happinesses."

Don't you think that's wise? I'm very interested in the whole idea of happiness, what it means, how to attain it, if there is any such thing, etc. And I think gratitude is an essential component of happiness. Sometimes the little things - a new book or bottle of nail polish or a letter in the mail - are everything. And if you think about it, little moments comprise so much more of life than big things. How often do birthdays and graduations and weddings and those milestone events occur (not that they can't be perfectly wonderful)? And how often can you borrow a book or paint your nails or write something? Take a walk and look at the stars? So if you want to be happy more often, perhaps appreciating the little things would help.

Anyway, I highly recommend this book. It's become one of my favorites, I think (although it's hard to play favorites with books). If you have ever read any books from the Anne of Green Gables series or the Betsy-Tacy series (two of my very favorites) and loved them, this book is in the same vein.

Affectionately yours,
Eva