Tag Archives: happiness

Fishing for happiness

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I do want to go fishing and spring does not seem to be getting here quickly enough for me to get out and do some fishing. The weather has been warm, above average. Maybe it won’t be too much longer until I am sitting by the lake with the sun shining, birds singing, and a cooler full of fun.

I will happily wait until the day actually gets here because there is always a lot of life to enjoy between this moment and some moment in the future. It is even a possible I won’t be around when the day actually arrives, so I choose to enjoy each day while I wait.

As I have mentioned before in other posts, remembering that I am mortal, makes each day special. Even those days when everything seems to go wrong or against me. Sort of like a bad day fishing when everything is perfect. Except the fish are not biting, and out of nowhere a breeze starts.

Then in what seems like a moment, the wind is gale force, and the sun is hidden behind dark rolling clouds with lightening streaming from them…mostly towards me. Even those days are happy enjoyable days. I was fishing, enjoying a beautiful day, and now I have a front row seat for a little of natures springtime fury. Almost a special show created for my viewing pleasure.

Looking for happiness is a lot like fishing. Maybe looking for happiness should be fishing for happiness, because in essence that is how it is done. I have never found happiness laying on the floor next to my bed in the morning. Nor have I found happiness waiting outside on the porch, or waiting quietly anywhere else.

If I am not happy, I go out and fish for happiness. Unlike the movie that coined the phrase, “Build it and they will come”, happiness does not happen that way in real life. When I fish, I fish in different areas around the lake. I fish in one spot for a bit, and if nothing happens I move to another spot. If I catch a nice fish at one spot, I may stay fishing right there longer in hopes of catching more fish.

What is funny, is for me, the type or size of fish really does not matter. Happiness is the same way come to think of it. I don’t go out and work and sweat for a record piece of happiness. I find that I am happier when I find situations that make me happy throughout out my day.

Perhaps I really do fish for happiness, one little piece at a time, all day long. Happiness, like fishing takes a little initiative, but it is well worth the small effort it takes to be happy. In my experience same as fishing, if I try a little happiness, the rewards I receive are more than I expect most of the time.

If you wake up tomorrow and are feeling a little blue, take my suggestion. Get out there and fish for a little happiness. Happiness is out there waiting for the patient fisherman.

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Career changes and lasting relationships

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If I were a carpenter, and you were a Lady…. If you listen to old country music, or happen to be a Johnny Cash fan, you know this song was sung by Johnny Cash back in the day. If you are not familiar with the song, the song is questions asking the woman different trades and if she would still love him.

What I enjoy about the song, is the different ways the man asks the same question. If I were a carpenter, tinsmith, so on and so forth will she still love him? It may seem that the man is not sure that the woman would love him and be with him, so he keeps asking to make sure the answer stay the same.

And of course the answers are the same throughout the song. June Carter sings that, yes, she would still love him and support him at whatever he does. That is a pretty strong bond the man and woman have between them, and her validation that she will and would love him no matter what came down the pipeline shows how sure they are of their relationship.

I think this song has a lot of relevance today with our world as it is. For some of us, this is our second, third, or maybe fourth major career change in the making between the job we were going to do the rest of our lives and today. For others the track record is the same in the relationship department. It seems many of those truths we were given as children are no longer true. Rarely is there a one lifetime job, or a lifetime long relationship.

Where is the balance in our lives? How do we as individuals meld our personal values, wants, and needs into something that fits our life, where not everything is forever any more? How can we go through a lifetime full of ups and downs, where the downside brings up stressors and pressures that ripple out and back, rocking our personal values, wants, and needs to there very core?

Most of us follow some variation of two main methods. One group tries to maintain order in their life, and the other group takes life as it happens. The key of course is balance. If a healthy balance is maintained between being a control freak, and letting life take you this way and that, it is possible to live a happy contented life most of the time.

In the song, what the man does for a living is not important. The relationship between the man and the woman has nothing to do with his past, present, or future career(s). The relationship is not centered on money. The relationship does not revolve around what they have or do not have. The relationship does not center on how they look, or how witty they are. The relationship is centered on the love each has for the other. As long as love is the center of their relationship, nothing else matters.

Nothing else matters to the couple in the song. They know what is important for them and why. They know that not compromising what is most important to them by life’s other distractions brings them the most happiness possible. Letting yourself be distracted away from what is most important to you is the second biggest cause of unhappiness. The biggest cause of discontent and unhappiness is not knowing what is most important in your life until after you have given it away, or otherwise compromised it.

Take time at the end of each day before you fall asleep and review at what you are doing with your life. Is what you are doing bringing you closer or farther from what you truly want? Is what you are doing making you happy, or does it tug on you, stealing a little of your happiness away every day? Decide what is most important to you each night, and start each day trying to make it happen. Before you know it, you will wake up and realize you are there!

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Argue less and find more happiness

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There was a time if I was in an argument, it was not over until one of us admitted defeat. The argument would go on until there was a clear winner. It would even go on longer if it was a heated debate. After all what was the fun of stopping at just winning if I could really rub the other persons nose in their defeat?

It sure felt good when on the winning end to really punish the other person. Taking it one step further. Adding a few extra hurtful comments because I knew I could was extra frosting on the cake.

Over time, I learned, or maybe unlearned, that I was not doing myself any good going above and beyond when I won an argument. It made me feel good for a few minutes of course. Or maybe I should say it made my ego feel good.

What I found was the price I extracted in collecting my proverbial pound of flesh from the other person would eventually turn out to be very expensive for me. I found out my behavior I was really hurting myself in the long run.

Over time, I find it better not to let arguments become that heated if at all possible. The more battles I took on, even more battles would make their presence known. In the end there are only a few battles worth fighting.

What I learned to do was stop arguing when I won. When losing, I found it is less painful to concede immediately. Stopping at the first opportunity is something practiced in martial arts where the idea is to stop the violence as quickly as possible with the least amount of harm to the opponent.

Fighting battles can be fun. Winning them is fun. Punishing the loser is even more fun. It is a blast in fact, until I needed something that only the person I hurt could do for me. Then suddenly it became obvious that the price they paid was much smaller than the price I would end up paying.

At first it was hard to stop. Hard to make myself stop when I had a lifetime of taking arguments too far, too often. With practice it became easier, and when done long enough, stopping before an argument became heated and something painful was said, became second nature.

So what is the benefit in not taking an argument too far? The most obvious is the other person does not feel like they have an enemy. They know what they were saying was actually heard and understood. In the future they may be may be more likely to help you, or at least not do anything to hamper you because they are not your enemy.

Being perceived as more mature comes in third for me. Not letting a disagreement become personal, and therefore heated, allows me to stay focused on keeping the disagreement respectful.

I find I have more energy. I have more energy because I am not wasting energy and effort on something that is not that important.

Life becomes easier and simpler. Not wasting time and energy on something that when compared to the bigger things in life are not really that important, allows more time and effort for what really matters. Not spending my energy trying to win an argument at any cost, gives me more time to notice those little things that make a big difference in the quality of my life.

When enough time is put into not arguing for the sake of arguing, I now understand other peoples arguments may be valid when they disagree with me.

Because I learned other people are not always wrong, I started seeing the person. When I start seeing the person, I know they are trying to enjoy their life just like I am. They may be going about it differently, but they are not wrong.

Reaching this point, a happier more filling life starts to happen, and life becomes happier and more enjoyable because almost everyone is moving in the same direction I am.

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We are waiting for you

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We should not define ourselves through the approval or disapproval of others, but rather by accepting ourselves and appreciating who we are. When we are young children, maybe even babies we do things that elicit a reaction. If moving the muscles in our face receives a response, we try it again. If it works a second time it becomes a part of who we are.

Being accepted and approved of by those around us is very important to our well being. It is what makes society function from a tribal setting to a country of billions. If we are not accepted by those around us for who we are, it is hard to be happy.

Often we take the need to be accepted farther than we should. We do certain things or perform certain acts, not because we want to, but because it is something we think we need to do to receive acceptance from those around us.

Often those rituals we are performing are restrictions we place upon ourselves. Dressing a certain way is a good example. When we are children it never enters our minds how we are dressed. It is only when others in our social circle start to notice what we are wearing that our clothing becomes important to us.

This forming and changing to conform rules our life throughout our high school and early adult years. We conform and change so often we are not even aware we are doing it, and have been doing it. As we change, we change our speech, our taste in television, books, and other entertainment, and opinions of people and the world.

We wake each day and put a happy face on for the world to see, showing everyone we come into contact with how much like them we are. We observe certain few people who seem to be naturals in our chosen circle and emulate them. We also start feeling less than because we are not that talented and natural at being who we want the world to see we are the same as that person or persons.

What would happen if instead of trying to be like everyone else with a few minor differences, we worked on becoming ourselves? Really being who we are, and not settling for being a little bit of who we really are?

Each day we wake, each of us makes almost invisible changes from who everyone thinks we are to who we really are. Most of the time we are not even aware of the process. It may be something as odd as waking up, and wondering why we said what we said to someone the day before. Or maybe why we watched a different television program the night before instead of the program we always watch.

Our inner self knows who and what we really are, and manipulates subtle changes in our lives to help us become us, and not a poor clone of who we think we want to be. Women are the most obvious and successful example during middle age. We men go through a major process too, but we are not as successful as women are in identifying and becoming the real us.

Those people we tried to emulate all those years, were themselves, and they were comfortable with who they were. The real us is perfect too once we remove all the additions and subtractions we made to ourself to fit in. The real us is the person who has stripped away all expectations belonging to others about us, and they become the person they were born to be.

Once we are us, and not an act, we start to have a clear understanding of why we are in this world, and what our true purpose is. At this point we enter in a race against time to accomplish whatever it is we were meant to do.

How much healthier it would be if we did not wait until some future time to become us, stripped away the facade starting right now, and became the real us. How much more we could accomplish as we perfect ourselves along the way instead of going through separate processes. Who am I, and what is my purpose would not be as painful of a process. We need you, start now on the path to finding you.

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Life and happiness you wish for – part two

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part one here

Once again plan everything out as if you were actually going on your trip. Don’t forget to think about what clothes you need, shots, medicine, anything you would need if you were really going. Do you have enough clothes of the right type, proper transportation, good shoes for walking, a swim suit? Are you going skiing, scuba diving, fishing, mountain climbing?

Really think about everything you want to take with you, and what you will need to rent. Ensure you have planned enough cash reserve to cover any equipment rentals you will be making. Who do you want to bring along with you? Trips aren’t that much fun when you are alone, unless of course the trip is to get away by yourself.

Once your trip is all planned out, you have a road map of ‘THE’ plan for your life. How and what did you plan? What you spent your time planning out should be a reflection of how you manage your life. What kind of planner did you turn out to be? Is your plan and your life in sync with one another?

Are you a casual planner like me, taking some clean clothes and leaving everything else to fate? Or perhaps you planned to every detail, including travel dates and times, meals, entertainment and adventure? As the saying almost goes, “The devil is in the details.” Only this time it is not the devil in the details, it is you who is in the details.

However you have planned your trip should be a reflection of your life. If your trip is well planned, your life should be a well planned event. Having a difference between your trip and your life will make you miserable and unhappy.

For example, if your trip included three very close friends who you really would like to be intimate with (this is your dream trip after all), a monogamous relationship is probably not in your best interests right now. If you have every detail planned out including where you will be at certain times throughout the day, and how much you will spend each day, becoming a free agent is not a good career choice for you. Your plan should model your life.

If you find yourself troubled or frustrated about your life; wondering why things are not going the way you want them to, now may be a great time to plan a trip to wherever you have always wanted to visit? Taking the time to plan a trip will lead to you better plan your life and start changing your life into what you want your life to be. With your imaginary trip planned out, it is easy to see what should be changed in your life to better suit you.

Once you have your trip planned and your life changed, all you have to do is work your plan and you will be taking the first step towards your trip! So, when does the bus leave?

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Life and happiness you wish for – part one

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I once worked with a man whose nickname was Cracker, and he certainly was. Cracker was very funny, and sometimes very witty with great insight. One of his favorite sayings to all of us who worked under him stuck with me. Cracker said it often enough that I will never forget it. I use it often myself in certain situations.

Cracker insisted we be neat, and clean up our work area. Men in general are neither if they we a choice in the matter. If it weren’t for women willing to share their lives with us, some of us would have a hard time telling the bed from the clothes pile next to it. What Cracker would say almost like a mantra was this: “Plan your work, work your plan, and clean up as you go.” I later worked in an electronics repair shop where they had signs that read, “Your Mother doesn’t work here, clean up after yourself.” Same idea, different song…

In many ways Cracker’s saying applies to life in general just as it did work. If you do not have a plan, follow it, and check on your progress, you may get lost, or worse. Getting lost or worse lends itself to an important life question which is the purpose of this post. We all ask ourselves the same question, and we spend our lifetime finding and answer and validating what we find. That very important life question is: What is the plan for my life, and what is my real purpose in life?

I thought of an easy method today of how to start traveling down the path which leads to our real purpose, which leads to a happy life, and a better world. Of course I have no idea about your life purpose, nor could I venture a guess of any worth, but what I thought of today will help you solve this puzzle, and at the very least get you going in the right direction.

I went on a road trip last summer to Minnesota with one of my daughters and two grandchildren. I know myself fairly well, and I know I am not overly fond of structure. What I started planning out was a plan to camp out each night on the way to our destination and back. After I gave my idea more thought, I decided maybe that was a good plan for me, but not good for my daughter. I then hit upon a compromise. We would drive until we did not want to drive any longer and then find a hotel that was not a part of a national chain.

As I was thinking today about that road trip, I realized what a great tool the planning portion could be for planning our lives! Planning a road trip, real or not will help you find your path to your future! No need to take a literal trip at all, the planning is the important part. Plan a trip that is at least a week long, although two weeks or possibly three weeks is better.

It doesn’t matter of you plan it on maps, through Google, or with a travel agent or company. The important thing is to create a plan for your trip. Let your imagination take you wherever you want to go. If you want to ski across Europe, then plan it out. If you want to drive through snow country, or swim in the Caribbean, plan it out.

Plan your trip as you need to until you know you could leave the next day and your trip would be a success. Make sure you account for everything you want or need while you are gone.

Part two to follow shortly….

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