I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: happiness is a choice.
And no, not in a self-help sort of way, not in a “think it and it will materialize” sort of way, not in a homeopathy, aromatherapy, parapsychology, New Age, crystals and eyes of newt sort of way, nay:
In a simple, easy, rational, out-loud choice.
Like ordering a half-caf venti latte on ice or declaring that van Gogh not his best or writing your own personal outlook as universal truth…happiness is this. A pink paperclip.
You can search for happiness all you wish, declare it your goal, not money,not love, “I just want to be happy” we say and we mean it, it’s true, but the best of us (worst of us?) don’t “just” want, no, we “want” want we “need” want we “think” want we do. Happiness is not second prize, it’s first–first is the worst second is the best third is the one with the 401(k)–and we want it oh we want it so we chase and we chase and we chase and we
fall
down.
Because you can’t catch happiness.
It’s not a cold, it’s not a carrot, you’re not a horse, there is no stick. Because I know what a cold is (bacteria, virus, demons, spirits, too much time out building a snowman, not enough time warm under a blanket by the fire) and I know what a carrot is (good for your eyes) and I know what a horse is (a horse is a horse of course of course) and I know what a stick is, because I walked into one on my way home from the bus today and I have a little welt on my neck that looks like a tiny hickey from the world’s most succulent man. But what the hell is happiness?
A pink paperclip.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: happiness is a choice.
Wake up in the morning, and say, “Today, I shall be happy.”
That is all.
See, movies and romances and Pepsi commercials make happiness Impossible or Attainable With Enough Box Tops but never, never ONCE do they really tell you how. They know they can’t sell it or fake it or deliver it, but by God, if they could, it’d be in your freezer right now.
The truth is
my happy isn’t your happy isn’t his happy isn’t happy happy because what the hell is happy it’s saying I’m happy and then before you know it you’re happy and one day you wake up and no longer say it because more often than not you find that you’re happy because who needs a big grand Hollywood dance number when you have a flower-on-the-table-breezy-curtained-hot-coffee-cold-toes happy waiting for you right at the start of your day?
That is happy. Decide to be happy and you will be happy. Don’t wait for it to come to you, don’t imagine what it should be, decide it is what it is and what it is is pretty damn great, and then, Sweet Baby Ray’s, it will be. You will be.
You know it and I know it. and that’s all happy is. and that’s my secret. and I’m done.
What made me rhapsodize, soliloquize, victimize you with my musings today?
Well see, I was at work, and I forgot I could Be Happy, and I filed and I spreadsheeted and I multi-tasked ’til I could have wept big glossy office max tears, and then I went to the supply closet to find a binder clip, and there, amid a sea of gray metal twisted into contorted submission lay a single, pink paperclip.
And I remembered. Happiness is a choice.
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