Chasing Down the Muse: Be happy? The choice is yours

Happiness depends upon ourselves. — Aristotle

“Be Happy,” the red words emblazoned on a charcoal gray T-shirt at Heisler Park commanded. The question that popped into my mind first was whether one could choose to acquiesce to the decree or if it needed something more. It took just a second for me to decide for myself that, yes, at least I could.

Happiness is one of those things that come up all the time. “What do you want?” “I just want to be happy.” But what is happy? Can it possibly be the same for all? Leo Tolstoy said, “If you want to be happy, be.” Did he mean be happy or simply be? Either way, it seems like some pretty sound advice. And it certainly advises making your own choice.

We often spend an inordinate amount of time worrying and fretting about the state of things and how they should be/could be different. To what end? What if we just spent that same amount of time moving on to simply being and choosing to be happy? Hmmmmmm.

Several years ago, I had a client who complained of not being happy. She had recently moved here and seemed determined to dislike everything about the move. One day, she complained that every morning she was awakened by the incessant foreign-language-speaking neighbors’ chatter. She said it never let up and “ruined” her day. There seemed no way she could get around this miserable start. She stayed unhappy all day.

Well, a bit of detective work led to something interesting, I thought. In the backyard, a line of beautiful full-grown trees stood between the two houses. At dawn each day, a plethora of songbirds greeted the day with song. It turned out that the raised chorus of these finches and wrens and others were the foreign chatter she was hearing.

I have to admit that this awareness did not immediately make the young woman happy. But she did stop to think. Somehow, in just a few days, the innocent birdsong became something which she could view in a different light. Once she made the change, she chose to also have a different, more positive response to the sound.

While I will never know exactly why that moment of awareness caused a shift, it did, and it was not too long before our young lady was choosing happy more often. Perhaps the foreign quality to the morning sounds was somehow threatening where birdsong was not. Perhaps it was only a matter of time to adjust to changes. In any case, though, she did choose to view her life in a more positive, happy manner.

I believe we can all do this. Sure, there will always be events that threaten our choice to be happy. We here in Laguna are probably looking at a lot of those things for the upcoming summer. We will have traffic snarls and masses of out-of-town visitors. Parking will be prohibitive. Everything will seem to take too long. But aren’t you happy you live here?

Don’t you love being able to look out at the sea, watch the playful birds along the shore, hear birdsong in nearby trees and enjoy good weather nearly all the time? We are really lucky. Gratitude, wonder and awe can shift some of the annoyance. Enjoy!

CHERRIL DOTY is an artist, writer, and teacher who embraces the mystery and magic of all that is life. She can be reached at (714) 745-9973 or by email at cherril@cherrildoty.com.