Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Inside Scoop
The trick to being happy is knowing how to manage unhappiness.
I see all the blog posts, the lists of the ten things happy people do everyday, the five things happy people do before they wake up, the seventy secrets to happiness. I don’t even bother looking at them. I already do all the stuff they say. It doesn’t matter.
To me, happiness isn’t an affirmative thing, it’s all about containing the negative. I’m happy as long as I don’t let unhappiness crawl into the backseat and sit back there eating peanuts and throwing the shells on the floor, kicking me in the back with hard shoes, smearing food on the windows and snarling at passers-by.
But I tell you, once unhappiness is encamped in your backseat, it’s a true bitch to get it out. I know. I bought a two-seater car for just this reason.
So what’s my containment strategy you ask? How do I reckon with the belching, filthy gnome grabbing at my collar and telling me how to drive?
I don’t let it out of the car.
Because you see if I let it out of the car, it will take up residence in the house, float around me everywhere I go. Envelope me. I know this. I know how this goes. Give it an inch and it will ruin me for weeks.
So the greasy evil character stays in the car with the windows rolled up while I do the things on the lists I don’t read. I get a lot of sleep, I eat right, I walk a lot, I work. I do whatever I must to keep it in the car.
And then when it’s safe, when I sense that the nasty creature has mostly folded in on itself and is started to dry up, crumble on the back seat, I get in my car and I put the top down and I sail over the Hoan Bridge, look down at Milwaukee’s harbor and the big ships in port, see the waves in the distance, breaking white, and decide then that I am truly the luckiest person alive.
That’s how it works. This happiness thing.
9 Comments on “Inside Scoop”
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
an excellent approach, jan. keep it in there like the rabid dog that it is. a side note – your posts have been excellent during this crisis, your honesty and your emotion shine through.
Reblogged this on Red's Wrap and commented:
The key to happiness is that you have the key to happiness. Big news.
Reblogged this on Meanderings and commented:
Beautifully said😊
You have a great way of handling unhappiness. It’s so difficult! I’ll accept contentedness any day of the week. Happiness will eventually follow.
Saw an interview last night in which statement was made that happiness is a state. And states come and go. I’ll take contentment for the most part, with happiness flitting in along with all the other states us humans are subject to . . .
As relevant and focused as ever!
You are so right!
Can I please have your autograph? I can’t remember the last time I said this to someone or if I ever said it even. But your words always blow me away and I find such consistency to be jaw-dropping uncanny! So yes, autograph?
Nida – thank you for this. One of the things that sits in my backseat a lot is angst about my writing. Thank you for the encouragement. 🙂