When one is a child, happiness seems to come in giant doses. Walking about at the fair with a sticky, giant wad of cotton candy; drawing on the driveway with chalk; climbing the tall, tall tree and sitting perched way up high in its branches - all these things were true happinesses. Through the lens of time, we see whole hours, days even, of what seemed like unbridled joy and carefree delight in all the childhood things.
When one is an adult, happiness seems much more elusive.
Adults are self-conscious; singed around the edges by the fires of social interactions over the years, they tread more gingerly, lest they be found to be foolish or criticism-worthy. Also, adults have ongoing worries and responsibilities. We fret: Are the bills all paid? Have I taken care of all the pieces of that project at work? Do I need to see a doctor, or am I just experiencing the expected aches and pains of a person my age? What am I forgetting? Where is my motivation? Should I have done that differently? Was that a stupid or insensitive thing to say?
And larger concerns still: Who is running in this local election in my community? Why are those two factions in that country still at war? Why are there so many antibiotic-resistant germs? What can I do about poverty, murder, rape, human suffering, destruction of the environment, endangered species? Is there any way to save the earth from eventual cataclysm?
The view is complex, and it is impossible to understand it in its entirety. And as we try to do so, we find it more difficult to see those flashes of happiness. They are obscured, perhaps even deliberately hidden, by Life, and seem quite minuscule in comparison to the multiple mundane moments of every day.
Our mission now is to call the happy out into the open, so that we may gaze upon it and cherish it for what it is. In the upcoming days, we will do our best to recount stories of happy that we have found. Perhaps in reading about ours, you will remember and catch glimpses of your own happy as well.
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