Finding Happiness

A member of the family asked me recently, "What makes you happy?" Coming as it did just 10 days after my father's death, the question got me thinking: what is happiness, anyway?

George Burns famously said that happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family ... in another city. <buh-dum-bum!>

But seriously folks, where does one find happiness? I looked in a dictionary, where happiness is "deep pleasure in, or contentment with, one's circumstances; an instance of this."  Ironically, that definition leaves me rather discontented. Unhappy, I guess you could say.

I looked on Google, where I got over 73 million hits in 0.2 seconds: happiness quotes, happiness websites, and "The Happiness Project." Tons of happiness poems, articles, books, and videos. There's Happiness Magazine, which promises: "Find real happiness, sign up today!" Happiness is a booming business, apparently.

There are even college courses and seminars on happiness. My cousin Doug teaches a superb one during Winter Term at DePauw University. (I thank him for sharing his notes, on which some of these thoughts are based.) Doug notes that despite all the progress society has made in the last century, we seem to be no happier than our forebears. He adds that although we have more leisure time, "a life of leisure does not often lead to a life of happiness." Although we have more wealth, "prosperity is not buying us happiness."

The great philosopher Weird Al Yankovic weighed in on the subject when he sang, "If money can't buy happiness, I guess I'll have to rent it."  But I don't 'buy' that idea either. <another drum roll and rim shot, please>

So where does one find happiness? Some find it in prayer. Others in meditation. Twelve-steppers credit their Higher Power. Many say you can't seek it, you can only let it happen as the byproduct of a meaningful life. So here are a few meaningful things that have given me that byproduct recently:

• My various writing projects
• Classical music
• Reading a good book
• Water seen through trees
• The companionship of cats
• A nice meal my mother cooked
• Watching my nephews' track meet
• Helping a friend
• Comforting a dying loved one 

What I received from these activities was not just momentary pleasure but a greater sense of well-being or contentment. And it did not depend on external stimuli; it came from within. Apparently I am not the first to have this realization--

• Albert Einstein wrote, "If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things."
• The essayist Agnes Repplier (1855-1950) wrote, "It is not easy to find happiness within ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere."
• According to an old Tibetan saying, "Seeking happiness outside oneself is like waiting for sunshine in a cave that faces north."  

I can't improve on these aphorisms. The best I can do is remember them and realize that I am responsible for my own happiness.

Stuart

~~~~
By the way:
     "It is impossible for a lover of cats to banish these alert, gentle, and discriminating little friends, who give us just enough of their regard and complaisance to make us hunger for more."
          --Agnes Repplier

Reflections on a Life

My father died on Tuesday, May 4. He was 94 and had been in steep decline after a coronary five weeks earlier. He went peacefully, at home, in his sleep.

But two weekends ago Dad marshaled his strength to be with us when we celebrated Mom's 90th birthday. My sisters and their kids/grandkids were there. Mom's brother Fred and his wife came up from Miami. They brought a video taken years earlier showing Dad and his sister playing Christmas carols at a family gathering in Florida. He played his violin, and she the piano. Our late Uncle Jim was in the video too, carrying on with his siblings and telling stories ("embellishments and lies," Fred says with a twinkle). Although Dad couldn't see the images on the screen, he could hear the anecdotes, the laughter, and the music. His fine tenor voice was weak, but he joined in the chorus on some of the songs. He delighted being among four generations of his family.

This turned out to be the last hurrah. A few days later he took to bed and basically did not get up again. On Sunday last, realizing that he was hanging on for her sake, Mom and I gave him permission; we told him it was "okay to go." He said, "You mean, 'to die'?" Mom said, "Yes, it's okay." Some 36 hours later, he went sailing peacefully from our sight. Surely other eyes are now watching him coming and other voices are ready to take up the glad shout, "Here he comes!"

Though understandably tired, my mother has been an emotional pillar--a fortress--for the past weeks. She made all the tough decisions. Whenever hospice or home care folks called, my sister and I would say, "Check with her; she's the boss." She is a Smith/Showalter after all: always in control, always aware, always caring and giving. The motto is: "Ever onward!"

My Pennsylvania sister returned again yesterday and will stay through Sunday, Mother's Day. We will all then celebrate a wonderful mother who chose a wonderful father for us and was with him for a honeymoon that lasted  more than 67 years. It doesn't get much better than that.

In recent days I have thought often of a certain line from Shakespeare. When King Lear dies, the Earl of Kent tells Edgar to let him go. Shakespeare puts it this way:

Vex not his ghost; O, let him pass! He hates him much
That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer.

Then Edgar concludes the play with this quatrain:

    The weight of this sad time we must obey,
    Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
    The oldest hath borne most; we that are young
    Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

Amen, and Amen!