Some thoughts on happiness<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How are you feeling today? Any aches and pains\nyou wish would go away? Maybe a good night\u2019s sleep will do the job because your\nhealth is basically in good shape. Or not. Are you and your partner getting\nalong? Maybe you wish you had a partner or are sad about the one you lost? Is\nthere love and affection in your life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Are your efforts allowing you to make ends meet\nand to set a generous table in a place you are happy to be in? Do you have\ninteresting things to do in your life that are making you feel fulfilled? And\nthe kids, if you have any, are they well, and turning out how you had hoped?\nAre there things happening in the world that are so distressing they are making\nyou unhappy? Is there anything you can do about it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am not looking for raging joy and ecstasy. We\nmight look for moments like that sometimes in our lives. But that is\nunsustainable and we would burn out. It\u2019s not the drug high we are looking for,\nit\u2019s the quiet sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. It\u2019s a feeling of\nwell-being and comfort in your own skin and \u201call\u2019s well with my world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are so many things in life that can go\nwrong; it\u2019s a miracle we ever have a happy moment. Something like the bodies we\ninhabit, we inhabit such a complex environment. There is the great potential\nfor one of many of the things we face to go wrong. Or, for things to come out\nvery differently from the way we might like things to work out. Fortunately, so\nmany of the important things about our bodies are on automatic and are mostly\nmade to last a lifetime. The lives we get to live are not like that. A lot of\nit depends on chance but a lot of it also depends on what we make of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am well into my 80s, alive and in relatively\ngood health. Retired, I have time to think about these things while many of you\nare out there sweating the 9-to-5. Without getting into too much detail, in my\nlife I have worked hard and accomplished satisfying things that have benefited\nothers as well as myself. I can conclude that life has treated me kindly. I\nhave washed up on a friendly beach, and now the living is easy. Because I know\nI have earned my way, I don\u2019t have to feel guilty about my good fortune, and I\nam grateful for what help I received along the way. I hope those of you out\nthere at my age and stage feel the same way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I can contrast that with the life my father\nlived. His father left the family when he was a child, coming to Canada to make\nhis fortune. (My grandfather made his living in Canada with a horse and cart,\ncollecting junk that he could sell to dealers.) My father\u2019s mother died of\ntyphoid, in Russia, and my father and his brother were shuttled around to\nrelatives. His father, already in Canada, finally sent money for him and his\nyounger brother to join him. My father never received any formal education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When he arrived from Danzig to England, they found\nthat my father had pink eye and the authorities took him off the boat. They\nwere going to send him back to where he came from. Somehow, though, he evaded\nthem (still a teenager) and he spent two years hiding out in London before he\nwas able to come to Canada. I don\u2019t know what he did when he arrived in this\ncountry, but, in the years I was growing up (I was born in 1934), he never\nseemed to have a steady job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His big break came when the Second World War\nstarted and all the young men were called up as soldiers. My dad was hired to\nshovel coal into a furnace, the heat being used for drying eggs to be shipped\nto England. Because the engineers were drafted too, soon he was asked to study\nfor papers that would allow him to replace the engineers. How did they know he\ncould do it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All my school years, my father was studying his\nbooks at the kitchen table. When I tried reading his stuff, it made my head\nspin. He became a full-fledged stationary engineer by the time the war was\nover. All three of us kids in my family got secondary educations. My father\ndied at 67, still on that job. He was a happy man, I think. Compared to him, I\nhad it easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, what does it take to be happy? Isn\u2019t it\nabout having the right answers to some of the questions I asked when we got started?\nIt sure helps if your health is good. It sure helps if the kids you had turn\nout healthy and self-sufficient. It sure helps if you have had someone in your\nlife to love, and if someone has loved you. It sure helps if you have, or have\nhad, fulfilling work. It sure helps if you know that you have done things that\nhave benefited others as well as yourself. It sure helps if you have earned the\nmeans to meet your needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You don\u2019t have to have them all. Just having\nsome of these things, and the proper attitude, and you get to catch the brass\nring. Having a sense of gratitude for the things you do have helps a lot, too.\nBe happy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Max Roytenberg<\/strong> is a\nVancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His book <\/em>Hero in My Own Eyes:\nTripping a Life Fantastic is available from Amazon and other online\nbooksellers.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some thoughts on happiness How are you feeling today? Any aches and pains you wish would go away? Maybe a good night\u2019s sleep will do the job because your health is basically in good shape. Or not. Are you and your partner getting along? Maybe you wish you had a partner or are sad about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[4007,8302,8209],"class_list":["post-31324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-op-ed","tag-happiness","tag-lifestyle","tag-philosophy"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31324\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}