Happiness – Page 2 – Chloe J Sayers

The Difference of 20 Degrees

There are some words that I consistently get mixed up. Depends and matters. Affect and effect. (does anyone get that one right?) 11 o’clock and 1’oclock. (I might alone on this one…)
Thermostat and thermometer.

It’s not that I don’t know that there is a difference between a thermostat and a thermometer, I just can’t remember which one is which at a moment’s notice. The difference is huge though. One sets the temperature to what you want it to be, the other just records things “as is”. The same goes for joy and happiness.

Joy is not conditional on the test you just received, if someone looked at you funny, or if the weather is nice outside. Happiness can be a conditional emotion. It’s too variable and easily affected to be depended on for any type of self-evaluation.

Joy is a conscious decision. It goes hand in hand in contentment but steps up the game a bit.

Joy is rejoicing in the things that don’t change (i.e. God’s love for us, salvation, undeserved grace,etc…)

Joy is built on a peace that is derived from God, not simply an absence of troubles or drama.

Joy is a gift and a goal. It is not earned. You don’t have to buy 32 boxes of cereal and mail in box tops to receive it. It also isn’t going to be parachuted from a magical Joy Jet and land in your lap. It must be pursued and sought after and protected, because joy is easily stolen.

It can be a daily struggle to be consistent in joy. It’s far easier to keep checking the thermometer because there is nothing you can do about the weather. Choosing joy takes intentionality and effort.

For me, consistency is more of a curse than a struggle. There is always a large part of me that stays the same no matter what is going on around me. This works greatly for me in my favor as it tends to neutralize the possibility for anger or disappointment or frustration or stress. Yet being consistently apathetic is like setting your thermostat to 60 degrees and never changing it. There is no value in that, unless you like wearing three sweaters at the same time all the time.

Today could have been a lukewarm day. There was no reason for it to be a bad day, however. Mediocre didn’t seem like a favorable option either. Sticking with a good day felt like settling since I am alive today and have a God that loves me and am surrounded by so much beauty. Today, I have decided to set my thermostat to 80 degrees and leave it there.

If I can be consistently unconcerned, than I may as well be consistently joyful.

Happiness, Life Lessons, Pain, Writing

Observation

People-watching, the nice word for staring absently at everyone around you, is incredibly interesting and telling. As much as I love to observe those who surround me, I also like to self-watch. I try to separate the me that is aware of my surroundings and motivations and internal thoughts from my actual actions. I pretend that I am someone else and observe what I do in given circumstances. It’s a bit bizare but rather revealing.

Major Observation #1: My reactions to happinness and stress and sadness and anger in life are all exactly the same. When my emotions go to any extremes I generally isolate myself through headphones or location and scribble madly on a notebook or type wildly into this blog.

Major Observation #2: Even though I write just as much when I am experiencing negative emotions as the positive ones, I rarely share the more “downer” pieces. Mostly becaue I feel that my other writings aren’t as good and the world has enough hurt without me adding to it. This being said, it isn’t too hard to figure out when I’m having a splendid day (like today). It’s a bit more tricky the other way around unless you belong to the small group of people that can read me with scary accuracy.

Minor Observation #3: I actually don’t have a minor observation. Or another major one. I just felt that if I had major observations than I should have minor ones as well. For balance’s sake.

About Me, Happiness, Life Lessons

Living Life Differently

She never was content with doing the same thing the same way more than once. After she mastered tying her shoes, she had to do it faster and then with her eyes closed. If she could do a trick on her scooter using her right foot, then it must be completed with the left. Anyone can walk through the house with in the daylight or with the lights on but not many people can master the steep stairs in pitch darkness. But she could.

The English language was far to straight-forward, she made up her own modes of communication. The inanimate objects that surround us must serve some higher purpose, she assigned them personalities and goals and gave life to a weary world.

This world could not contain her, logic and gravity had no claim on her soul. There were infinite lands to be explored and infinite ideas to be born.

This wasn’t a hectic rush to break social norms but an intentional oblivion to society’s restrictive ideas of how to live. This wasn’t being an individual just for the sake of standing out in the crowd but forgetting that the crowd existed. This was forgetting that the wind tangled others’ hair and that the sun warmed others’ faces. This was forgetting that the map of life already had boundaries etched into it and a compass pointing everyone in the same direction. This was living life differently.

Happiness, Life Lessons, Writing

The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread

Cliches should be avoided like the plague. If placed in a paper, they will be the death of said assignment. Perhaps you are so unfortunate to have slipped one into conversation with a Cliche Catcher nearby. You know these people. As soon as you even start to say…”well, you know, the apple doesn’t…”

BAM!! They’ll interrupt you. Every time. With the one cliche that evidently is acceptable to use, because these Cliche Catchers will throw it in the middle of your sentence before that poor apple could even think about falling.

“That’s so cliche!” the Cliche Catcher says (extra emphasis on the “so”) Using common phrases and idioms is evidently no longer allowed. It’s just so……so cliche. Avoid at all costs.

If you haven’t picked up on the sarcastic undertones yet, I personally find cliches to be useful at times. An entire conversation of them might be annoying, but there is one that I find to be rather true.

“It’s the small things in life that count” (or some derivative thereof). I’d like to take that one step further. If you stop enjoying and finding joy in the small things, eventually you will stop finding happiness in the big excitements as well. You keep looking for something bigger and bigger to satisfy this need for the interesting, the new, the exciting, the fun. The problem occurs because eventually there won’t be anything bigger and bigger. What happens then?

Perhaps you stop the break-neck pace. Perhaps you slow down and listen to frosty leaves flitting through the branches of the tree with speckled bark. You begin to notice the adorable quirks of your best friends. You rediscover the joy of an old song or book. You enjoy life because you are living it.

Happiness, Life Lessons, Writing

Logic-less

I really am spending more time writng than I ought. I should be reading and memorizing and studying. I feel that’s a bit unfair though. If I’m expected to keep soaking up information and knowledge, creating these giant stockpiles of thoughts in my brain than I think I should be allowed to turn the tables sometimes and release these ideas.

Besides, my entrepreneurship classes and books are always encouraging us to write and be creative. I like it when I can find other things to justify myself with rather than just my own logic.

I realized lately that I do that a lot. I create these little rules and mannerisms that help guide my life along. No one else follows them but I don’t expect them to. I like the idea that I can create up my own words if the ones I’ve been given aren’t working properly. I like that I can create my own paths if the ones that are offered don’t look like ones I want to sojourn down.

Today, I am in one of the best moods possible as a result of a severe lack of sleep and a good amount of coffee. I am just tired enough where nothing bothers me and have enough caffiene in my system to make everything peaceful and happy. It’s one of those moods where I am almost impossible to knock down. I don’t have to look for the silver lining on days like today. All I can see is the silver, the clouds aren’t even existent. I burned my tongue on my precious coffee today and instead of registering the pain, I smiled because my coffee was still hot. Perhaps this foolish happinness is completely irrational, but I am determined to enjoy it today.

One of those little rules that I have is that I have empowered myself to dictate what kind of day I am going to have. I decide whether it will be a happy day, a tired day, a reflective day, a sad day, and whatnot. The type of day I have is completely distinct from my circumstances. Its some kind of buffer I give myself that is built on a solid foundation of dellusion and denial. It’s probably unhealthy, but it works quite well for me.

That’s another rule: I can do things that don’t make sense but if they work, I can continue doing them. Today is a happy day. As was yesterday. Tomorrow is looking pretty good too. Once I started deciding what kind of day I was going to have (I began this a few months ago) I have found that is very convenient to choose to have happy days the majority of time. If you could pick what your day was going to be like, wouldn’t you go for the best possible?

Change, God, Happiness, Life Lessons

Life is wonderful.

I feel like I have lived a month in the past week and could probably write a good deal on first college experiences but I am currently enjoying just living life instead of dissecting it. So for now, I am putting away the scapel. This does not mean that I have nothing to say. My mind is whirling faster than it did before, just more about the width of the Fertile Cresent, how to balance equities, liabilities, and assets, and business plans then my normal introspective thoughts.

The one rather self-reflective thought that has been making its rounds however; is about the way I percieve myself and my surroundings now in contrast to what my viewpoint will be in two years, one month, five days. I certainly know that I am an incredibly different person than when I was in 9th grade, or even the beginning of 12th grade. It only makes sense then, that I will change within the next four years. I will see myself and everything else in this wonderful world very differently. I will probably look back at my state of mind right now and give myself one of those condescending little half-grins. I will probably read this in a year and laugh out loud.

I completely realize how ignorant I am about self-realization, even when I think that I have myself figured out. I used to reassure myself that I least understood myself. Now, I reassure myself that at least I know that I don’t understand myself. At least I am aware that I am unaware.

I am far too happy to end this post on that negative note. I am good, life is wonderful, and God is great.

Happiness, Life Lessons, Writing

Happiness Revisited

It was rather cold this morning for August. Driving with my back windshield fogged up because 1378211213_8f5b7900cd

I’m too lazy to wipe it off and being awake and on the road before 8 in the morning made me feel like I was going to high school again. However, instead of staying in the 50s all day like most school days, the sun came back and summer showed its face again.

Today was probably just as nice as any other day this summer. Playful sunshine and soft breezes, swaying trees and all that wonderful summer beauty. Yet, because I woke up cold and had to put on jeans and a sweatshirt on this morning, changing into a skirt and sandals made the day seem so much more delightful.

I find it sad that I can’t appreciate how wonderful life is until I have something to contrast it with. I don’t see the sunshine until I’ve lived in the shadows. I can’t muster up any happiness if I never feel sad.

Today was probably just as nice as any other day but today was more wonderful than any other day. I have reflected back on my summer and realized it was even better than I thought. Its been a fun experience and perhaps more importantly, a learning experience. Even without test scores and grades to validate me, I am quite assured that I have learned just as much in the last two and a half months of living life than I did over the past year.

I’ve learned how to balance my to do list and organization and obsession with getting things done with enjoying others around me and making the most of my limited time. I’ve learned how to balance listening and talking, being home and being away, hiding in my writings and expressing myself out loud, staying aware of the world while staying delightfully oblivious.

I’ve learned how to deem things irrelevant, such as having a balanced life, so I could live to extremes. Quite obviously, I’ve also perfected the skill of contradicting myself. At the beginning of the school year, I wrote this: http://86400seconds-smiles11.blogspot.com/2010/12/theory-3-happiness-is.html. If you don’t feel like taking the time to read it, I basically said that happiness was a worthless goal in life. I still think joy is way more important yet hard to come by sometimes. I have tested my theory and have lived an equally full life being indifferent to happiness as when I embraced it. I’m not going to make happiness the main focus of my life by any means but there is more value in it than I originally supposed.

Here is what I have found happiness to be good for: Until I let myself feel happy, then I can’t feel sad either. Not feeling sad bothers me more than not feeling happy. I suppose switching the order would make more sense, that it makes more sense to feel sad first so happiness means more when it comes. Either way, a juxtaposition between the two emotions is needed, therefore happiness does have a valuable purpose.

Saying goodbye to family, friends, familiar places and memories in the next two weeks will be sad. Yet it wouldn’t be genuinely sad if those things didn’t represent genuine happiness at one time or another. This heartache is well worth years of happy memories.

Side note: This is my 50th post in the span of roughly a year. Thank you all who make it to the end of these long-winded posts.

Happiness, Life Lessons

This is living.

She shudders as the thunder blankets the sky. Her reaction is to hide, to withdraw inside of the house, herself, a book, anything. Sheets of rain driven by powerful winds rush by the window. The movement of the individual rain drops down the glass and the immense force that they command together frightens her so much that rationality is abandoned. Rubber boots are adorned instead of logic. The umbrella is left lying under the tackle box in the closet, her mothers warnings are left unheeded by ears that need to hear the wind in its full force.

The wetness is trapped in her clothing. It wraps around her tightly, clinging to her skin.
She runs. The neighbors peer from behind their gingham curtains and wonder why she must run, never once thinking that they must run as well. She doesn’t notice.

There is renewal in the rain and joy in the puddles. The rain forms moving walls that travel down the road. She laughs and runs after something that is impossible to catch.

Mud splashes with every step, barely noticeable on her legs and shorts that are saturated with water. She does not stop running.

Until she does stop and opens her eyes and her arms because this is the time to create a photograph. This is the time to be symbolic and embrace the rain. The smile is small but it has started from the heart and it cannot be stopped. Exhausted, she lets her hands fall, palm-down, over her head, onto the ground that is so wet that it accepts the hand prints willingly as they impress into the mud. Her body forms an arc. Slowly, she lowers the spine and lets it mold into the ground.

Eyes closed she lays there, soaking in the water from the earth and from the clouds. The thunder no longer blankets the sky. Each peal moves through the clouds on a diagonal, followed by a slight turn of the head. Sunshine replaces the darkness but the rain has a steady, lulling, consistency.

Each drop feels like it will pierce her skin as it lands on her legs and arms but the way it kisses her lips balances the pain. This is living.

Happiness, Life Lessons

The Best is Yet to Come

Many times during the day I begin to compose a post, journal entry, essay, random prose, if you will, in my head. One of the recent ones was bemoaning the fact that my life was a series of to do lists and as soon as one major goal was finished (ie AP tests) another one quickly bopped its head up to request, no demand, my complete attention, time, and energy (ie getting a summer job). It inspired a mental essay on the futility of life, and the continual tasks that will never cease to rob life of meaning and joy. I’m so glad that idea never got onto paper.

Next mental musing: Something sweet and nostalgic about the future and the past and the present (those three always go nicely together) After all, this is the time of last tests, last classes, last hugs, last friendships, last everything, right? It is only appropiate that something sickingly sweet drip from this post. Again, I’m so relieved that one never came to fruition.

So now I’ve got two ideas that I don’t want to write about. You might be wondering if this post is ever going to have any meaning. Here it comes. While I was wrestling with these very different ideas in my head (rat-race life vs. kind reflectings) I had a new thought. My mind was turning around questions like….

“Can I be happy just living off a to-do list and fleeting memories? Is this the best it is going to get?” In the midst of this self-interrogation came a refreshingly clear and simple sentence.

The best is yet to come.

Not tomorrow, or in 10 years, or when I am retired. As long as I am me, things will be quite the same. No, the best will come after this life. How could the best possibly be in this world that is filled with brokenness and pain? If we continue to believe that the best is just another day away, we might just never get there. There is a bigger picture than this life. It’s not only bigger, its better.

Happiness, Life Lessons

Theory #3 Happiness is….

Happiness is……..unnecessary? No, I believe it serves a purpose. Self-serving? Most often, its a peanuts_happiness

personal prize. The meaning of life? Definitely not. It’s so easy to get caught up in the life-long pursuit of happiness. Obviously, it is something deemed important even by our forefathers, but is it really a fulfilling prize? Happiness comes in many shapes and forms but ultimately it is self-seeking. Also, it tends to be very exclusive. The things that make me happy won’t necessarily make others around me happy. It usually only benefits yourself.

So often, happiness has become the underlying motivation behind the majority of our actions. Yet we are never truly satisfied. There is always that yearning for something more, something a bit greater than ourselves, something a bit better than what there could ever be. Happiness never travels alone, it constantly coupled with expectations. We are happy when our expectations are met and we are unhappy when they are not met. The problem is: people, weather, circumstances, opportunities, the ice cream flavor of the day, events, and life is rarely as we would have it be. This results in disappointments which results in unhappiness which results in an insignificant life? Incorrect.

The goal of our lives is not to be as happy as possible at all possible moments as we attempt to store up happiness for those unhappy days that always seem to be around the corner and cast a shadow on the happiness that we are happily enjoying in those happy moments. (happy appeared six times in the last sentence if you were wondering) For me, the goal of my life is to serve my Creator and the one who gave His life to save mine.

All this to say, my third theory of life is as follows: Happiness should not be the center of our lives (it is a nice perk) as it will usually disappoint and can be quite hollow.

Oh look! Below are lyrics that wrap it up quite nicely. You could have just read them instead of my long-winded post.

“Happiness is overrated

It always lets me down

It’s artificially inflated

She’s a flirts and she burns me every time

Happiness is just a dream and nothings what it seems”