When I requested that the sisters sitting on the far right-hand side of the Relief Society room move so that I could see their faces, I explained I was half-blind. I do believe my words were something like, "And since my right eye is utterly and completely blind, would you mind moving over to the center of the room so I could see your beautiful faces?"
I wasn't being patronizing, and I wasn't lying. But before they moved, a couple of the girls looked at each other with expressions that--to me--clearly said: "Couldn't she think of a better reason for moving us?"
A couple of sisters didn't move. I decided not to push my luck, and to do my best to look around the entire room after I asked questions.
And then I plunged forward with my lesson.
It took a couple of unexpected turns; that's how I knew it went well. But not such unexpected turns that we went off track. Good unexpected turns. The type of unexpected turns inspired participators have.
Anyway, I'm still convinced my approach for the lesson was as necessary for me as for anyone else: in a lesson about responding to persecution with faith and courage, I found myself emphasizing happiness. Happiness amidst trials. And I found myself exploring links between happiness, faith, and trials.
Faith and trials, for example, were easy to link. The gospel is full of cycles, and faith and trials form their own tidy little cycle: faith sustains us during our trials, while trials handled properly are ways of strengthening our faith. And happiness, it seems, is an almost-required attitude. No matter our circumstances. But happiness seems especially required during trials.
Happiness in the midst of difficulty proves we have the right perspective: not because we're absolutely delighted to be metaphorically whipped, stomped on, thrown into the fire, or otherwise (metaphorically) abused... but because we're absolutely delighted to experience something that will help us become more perfect beings.
To be frank, I have always been the type of congregation member who rolls my eyes at a speaker who proudly proclaims that she (or he) is grateful for her (or his) trials. I've never been grateful for my trials themselves. But I am grateful for what I have become by experiencing my trials; I'm grateful for lessons learned, for character shaped, for perspective granted, for faith built, for relationships with Deity strengthened. I'm grateful for the end product. But I'm not--and to be honest, I don't know if I ever will be--grateful for the agonizing process that creates the end product.
But here's a thought, paraphrased from President Eyring's talk on adversity from last General Conference: our trials prove how much Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love us. They love us so much that they tailor-make our individual trials to help us on our way to becoming the most perfect selves we can be. They love us so much they are willing to invest themselves in all of the details of our lives.
Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
"Spring Has Sprung . . .
. . . the grass is riz, I wonder where the posies is."
My mom used to say that on the first notable day of beautiful spring weather. Or sometimes when she seemed to hope that, by force of magic, the words would help spring in its arrival. She is the type of person who is ready for spring by early February. I'm not much better: by the third week in February, I'm ready to see little green sprouts poking out of the dirt. To retire my heavy winter coats, my scarves, my gloves, my warm winter hats. To walk everywhere I need to go without fearing a deadly slip on black ice.
And today is one of those gorgeous days where I feel spring has, indeed, sprung. I saw green sprouts poking out of the dirt when I walked to the Trax station. (My roommate gave me a Barnes & Noble gift card for my birthday, and it's been burning a hole in my purse for more than a week now. Plus I needed a particular book for something I'm writing. Plus it was a good excuse to get outside and stay there for a while.) My light jacket was a little toasty. It was marvelous!
On days like today, I can't wipe a silly grin off my face. It delights me to look up and see clear skies. It delights me to notice the house under construction is no longer under construction under a tarp. It delights me that a host of other people are out and about, walking around the city without looking as though they are all completely intent on the places they're going.
It's wonderful to see kids running through the Olympic fountain at The Gateway. To pass street food vendors. (Partially because I'll have lived in Salt Lake City for two years this summer, and I never realized you can get street food here!)
The City Library lawn was sprinkled with people lying on blankets who were reading books. Studying, perhaps. Or maybe just soaking in the sunshine. I think I may find a blanket and do the same tomorrow, weather willing.
On days like today, I feel goodwill toward everyone. The gossiping teenage girls on the train entertain me instead of annoy me, I smile at complete strangers, and everyone I pass has no problem smiling and saying "hi" to a total stranger.
What a perfect day.
My mom used to say that on the first notable day of beautiful spring weather. Or sometimes when she seemed to hope that, by force of magic, the words would help spring in its arrival. She is the type of person who is ready for spring by early February. I'm not much better: by the third week in February, I'm ready to see little green sprouts poking out of the dirt. To retire my heavy winter coats, my scarves, my gloves, my warm winter hats. To walk everywhere I need to go without fearing a deadly slip on black ice.
And today is one of those gorgeous days where I feel spring has, indeed, sprung. I saw green sprouts poking out of the dirt when I walked to the Trax station. (My roommate gave me a Barnes & Noble gift card for my birthday, and it's been burning a hole in my purse for more than a week now. Plus I needed a particular book for something I'm writing. Plus it was a good excuse to get outside and stay there for a while.) My light jacket was a little toasty. It was marvelous!
On days like today, I can't wipe a silly grin off my face. It delights me to look up and see clear skies. It delights me to notice the house under construction is no longer under construction under a tarp. It delights me that a host of other people are out and about, walking around the city without looking as though they are all completely intent on the places they're going.
It's wonderful to see kids running through the Olympic fountain at The Gateway. To pass street food vendors. (Partially because I'll have lived in Salt Lake City for two years this summer, and I never realized you can get street food here!)
The City Library lawn was sprinkled with people lying on blankets who were reading books. Studying, perhaps. Or maybe just soaking in the sunshine. I think I may find a blanket and do the same tomorrow, weather willing.
On days like today, I feel goodwill toward everyone. The gossiping teenage girls on the train entertain me instead of annoy me, I smile at complete strangers, and everyone I pass has no problem smiling and saying "hi" to a total stranger.
What a perfect day.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Guilty Pleasures
Dear Moviebuffy,
(Yes, I know who you are. But I'll address you by your 'nym.) You asked about guilty pleasures. Now you do realize that in order for something to be a guilty pleasure, a person must feel--to one degree or another--guilt while doing something?
Have I ever struck you as the guilty type?
Even so, I suppose there must be some things I do that make me feel marginally guilty. So here you go. You asked, and you will receive.
Your friend (and not just acquaintance),
Confuzzled (even though y'all know my actual name, a 'nym for a 'nym seems more equal)
So without further ado, here they are:
(Yes, I know who you are. But I'll address you by your 'nym.) You asked about guilty pleasures. Now you do realize that in order for something to be a guilty pleasure, a person must feel--to one degree or another--guilt while doing something?
Have I ever struck you as the guilty type?
Even so, I suppose there must be some things I do that make me feel marginally guilty. So here you go. You asked, and you will receive.
Your friend (and not just acquaintance),
Confuzzled (even though y'all know my actual name, a 'nym for a 'nym seems more equal)
So without further ado, here they are:
- Eating chocolate chips straight from the bag.
- "Fat girl nights" in which I eat pretty much all of the following: frozen pizza, breadsticks, cookie dough, at least two varieties of ice cream, at least two candy bars, baked cookies, and Swedish fish. (No, I don't do this often. And no, I don't know where all of it goes once I packed it in. And no, it has never caused me to explode.)
- Walking around the house in my slip when I get home from church, it's hot, and my roommates are gone for the weekend. (Hey, you asked!)
- Singing the theme songs to the Disney Afternoon cartoons of my childhood. (Sometimes, some crimes go slippin' through the cracks, but these two gumshoes are picking up the slack. There's no case too big, no case too small, when you need help just call Ch-ch-ch-chip and Dale, Rescue Rangers . . .)
- Daylong Gilmore Girls marathons. (And I'm talking all day. It's not the show that causes the guiltiness, but the time frame.)
- Hanson. Yes. I own more than one Hanson CD. Mock away, friends. Mock away. They got better as they got older. Mellower. Marginally less girly-looking, too.
- Collecting Scrabble words as I'm talking to people I'd rather not converse with. (I never remember the gist of the conversations, but I try to keep tally of any good 7-letter words I could use in a game.)
- Belting out songs I do not have the range for while accompanying myself.
- Facebook, anyone?
- Saturday morning superhero cartoons. For when I want to feel like a kid again.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Thoughts on Happiness
I have been thinking quite a lot about happiness recently. This is, I suppose, an inevitable result of feeling unhappy with a couple of life situations that are, at the moment, completely out of my control. Neither of these things are things I can change, but I have allowed the two to shove me down a spiral of sadness and misery. I am working at letting myself be happy regardless, but it’s more difficult than it seems.
In addition to this situational thinking, The Dancing Newt and Schmetterling and Eric Weiner and, unwittingly, my roommate have all written, said, or done something recently that set me thinking even more about happiness. (This post of Schmetterling’s actually came when I thought I had ended said thinking riff. And set me thinking all over again. But more on what he said later.)
Anyway, the thinking started last Friday, when my roommate came home from a swing dance date as giddy as I’ve ever seen her. And she’s a happy person. Anyway, she wanted to keep dancing around and before I knew it, our other roommate had started playing the song “Happiness” from You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.
And that started it all: the premise of the song “Happiness” is that happiness comes as a result of small things. Charlie Brown starts off the song, because he’s ecstatic to learn that the redheaded girl chews her pencil, and that means she’s human! (Personally, I think chewing pencils is a bad, nervous habit. One I have. And am reminded of when I see anyone else chewing a pencil.) The song goes on to list several small things as happiness: pizza with sausage, learning to whistle, five different crayons, tying your shoes, even in being alone now and then. (My favorite line, by far, that: I find myself craving solitude sometimes, and need a certain amount of “me” time to be sane and content) It culminates in the idea that happiness is anything an individual loves—whether it’s people, food, or a place. While I found this a good idea, I found the opposite eqeually true: even things people love are known to cause disappointment.
Speaking of place, Eric Weiner’s The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World continued to spur on my preponderance of ponderings about happiness as I read it last week. Weiner set out to explore the reverse of the maxim that happiness isn’t a state; it’s a state of mind. There is a whole branch of psychology devoted to studying happiness, and they have a way of ranking places based on how they rank on a happiness scale. (The United States, incidentally, does not rank as high on the happy scale as I expected)
He explored places like Bhutan, where they try to measure Gross National Happiness—because the government thinks it a better indicator than GDP. (Incidentally, happiness as policy connected to this post by my Newt-y friend.) He visited Iceland, a remarkably happy place, due in part to its creativity and its attitude that its citizens are allowed to fail and change. Indeed, failure and change are expected. And he visited Moldova, where it was miserable—but the fruits and vegetables were fresh. In the end, he didn’t try to make any broad sweeping conclusions about happiness: people who were happy were happy for variable reasons. (Which means, I suppose, that Tolstoy got it wrong. All happy families are not alike.)
But it led me to re-think part of the premise I’ve been thinking of recently—namely, that I would be happier if I were someplace other than where I am. (Although I must admit that after reading about Moldova, I think I’d feel happier coming home. Just by virtue of comparison.)
I thought I’d exhausted my thoughts about happiness, especially since I had yet to reach a conclusion about how to force myself to be happier (NEWS FLASH: This just in. I discovered that happiness isn’t something I can force on myself, although I can pursue people and things that have been known to help me be happy before.).
And then Schmetterling’s post came. I already linked it, so use that link. Or maybe you already have. Anyhow, his posted started me thinking. Primarily about Billy Joel’s “Vienna.” He quoted the latter half of this line: “You know that when the truth is told, you can get what you want or you can just get old” and I thought about that and this line: “Dream on, but don’t imagine they’ll all come true.”
At first I thought the dreaming line stood as stark contradiction to the whole song. Then I realized: it doesn’t. The song is advocating slowing down, but not giving up. If you only imagine all of your dreams will come true, they won’t. But some dreams come more easily than others, and rushing around does not always help us to fulfill our dreams.
“Vienna” is replete with admonitions to slow down, and (thanks to Schmetterling for the post that triggered the epiphany) I realize far too often I equate happiness with being so occupied and stressed, I am practically frenetic. And while exact and perfect happiness doesn’t come from slowing down, it does help to bring a little mellowness to my demeanor.
Besides, I’ve made a discovery: I don’t think we’re intended to be happy all the time. Otherwise, it would be void of any meaning as an emotion. Just as smiles would lose their power if they were the law.
In addition to this situational thinking, The Dancing Newt and Schmetterling and Eric Weiner and, unwittingly, my roommate have all written, said, or done something recently that set me thinking even more about happiness. (This post of Schmetterling’s actually came when I thought I had ended said thinking riff. And set me thinking all over again. But more on what he said later.)
Anyway, the thinking started last Friday, when my roommate came home from a swing dance date as giddy as I’ve ever seen her. And she’s a happy person. Anyway, she wanted to keep dancing around and before I knew it, our other roommate had started playing the song “Happiness” from You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.
And that started it all: the premise of the song “Happiness” is that happiness comes as a result of small things. Charlie Brown starts off the song, because he’s ecstatic to learn that the redheaded girl chews her pencil, and that means she’s human! (Personally, I think chewing pencils is a bad, nervous habit. One I have. And am reminded of when I see anyone else chewing a pencil.) The song goes on to list several small things as happiness: pizza with sausage, learning to whistle, five different crayons, tying your shoes, even in being alone now and then. (My favorite line, by far, that: I find myself craving solitude sometimes, and need a certain amount of “me” time to be sane and content) It culminates in the idea that happiness is anything an individual loves—whether it’s people, food, or a place. While I found this a good idea, I found the opposite eqeually true: even things people love are known to cause disappointment.
Speaking of place, Eric Weiner’s The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World continued to spur on my preponderance of ponderings about happiness as I read it last week. Weiner set out to explore the reverse of the maxim that happiness isn’t a state; it’s a state of mind. There is a whole branch of psychology devoted to studying happiness, and they have a way of ranking places based on how they rank on a happiness scale. (The United States, incidentally, does not rank as high on the happy scale as I expected)
He explored places like Bhutan, where they try to measure Gross National Happiness—because the government thinks it a better indicator than GDP. (Incidentally, happiness as policy connected to this post by my Newt-y friend.) He visited Iceland, a remarkably happy place, due in part to its creativity and its attitude that its citizens are allowed to fail and change. Indeed, failure and change are expected. And he visited Moldova, where it was miserable—but the fruits and vegetables were fresh. In the end, he didn’t try to make any broad sweeping conclusions about happiness: people who were happy were happy for variable reasons. (Which means, I suppose, that Tolstoy got it wrong. All happy families are not alike.)
But it led me to re-think part of the premise I’ve been thinking of recently—namely, that I would be happier if I were someplace other than where I am. (Although I must admit that after reading about Moldova, I think I’d feel happier coming home. Just by virtue of comparison.)
I thought I’d exhausted my thoughts about happiness, especially since I had yet to reach a conclusion about how to force myself to be happier (NEWS FLASH: This just in. I discovered that happiness isn’t something I can force on myself, although I can pursue people and things that have been known to help me be happy before.).
And then Schmetterling’s post came. I already linked it, so use that link. Or maybe you already have. Anyhow, his posted started me thinking. Primarily about Billy Joel’s “Vienna.” He quoted the latter half of this line: “You know that when the truth is told, you can get what you want or you can just get old” and I thought about that and this line: “Dream on, but don’t imagine they’ll all come true.”
At first I thought the dreaming line stood as stark contradiction to the whole song. Then I realized: it doesn’t. The song is advocating slowing down, but not giving up. If you only imagine all of your dreams will come true, they won’t. But some dreams come more easily than others, and rushing around does not always help us to fulfill our dreams.
“Vienna” is replete with admonitions to slow down, and (thanks to Schmetterling for the post that triggered the epiphany) I realize far too often I equate happiness with being so occupied and stressed, I am practically frenetic. And while exact and perfect happiness doesn’t come from slowing down, it does help to bring a little mellowness to my demeanor.
Besides, I’ve made a discovery: I don’t think we’re intended to be happy all the time. Otherwise, it would be void of any meaning as an emotion. Just as smiles would lose their power if they were the law.
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