Happiness

I've recently been drawn to reading The Happiness Project, and today I'm going to point you in the direction of Why Alicia Silverstone’s “Dumbest Celeb Quote” actually gives profound insight into the nature of happiness for some worthy reading.

It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light.

~G. K. Chesterton

This quote makes me think of my mother, a very light person if I've ever known one. When I was a kid... a teenager... her "lightness" used to drive me batty. Whatever observation I would make about the world, she'd come up with a lighter, more cheerful way to look at things. If I was annoyed with the behavior of a friend, she would point out all the good qualities in that friend. My mother could always find the good in people and seemed to be easily able to forgive the bad.

That was perhaps one of the hardest things for me about dealing with her illness toward the end -- witnessing her light turn heavy. She didn't do it frequently, but on the occasions she did allow herself to speak negatively about life (and god knows she had reason) or people in her life, it was shocking. On the one hand, I wanted to honor those feelings. It felt like she deserved to do a little bitching after all those years. On occassion, I'd even contemplated that perhaps if she'd vented a little more of the bad stuff from the beginning, maybe that cancer that festered inside her could have been released.

At the same time, there were moments in those final months when she was so totally unrecognizable to me, her heaviness so intense, that it was all I could do to just remain by her side. I remember being afraid that these would be the memories I'd be left with -- my mother angry and sad, without her light.

I think I'm much more like my mother now that I'm an adult. I'm often the one soothing the critics. I'm the one pointing out the light things in life. Sometimes I think of it as choosing to be an optimist rather than a pessimist. Sometimes it surprises me that I've become this kind of person. A friend recently wrote me in an email, "You, my friend, are someone who always sees the best in everyone, and I have learned a lot about that from you." I cherish that note.

But that's not always me. Occasionally I'll find myself rambling to a particularly sympathetic ear and I begin to wonder how the heaviness in my life hasn't completely defeated me. Some days it's simply as easy as getting out of bed... and there it all is. The troubles. The difficulties. The issues I've never quite succesfully managed to get myself over.

There are days when this little mantra runs through my head continuously -- fake it till you make it, fake it till you make it, fake it till you make it -- and many days it works.

I know my sister has similar strategies for getting through the rough times. I think we've both adopted... or absorbed... our mother's light seeking abilities in our own ways.

It's not always easy being that person. It is easier to complain, to dwell, to fret, to be angry about all that is unjust and difficult. Maybe it's easier for some people than for others. But I think when being light is chosen, perhaps when it comes from that heavier place... it is more meaningful. We are mastering our own path, in those times. We are choosing to act rather than just reacting. We are making happiness. And in doing so, we appreciate it more.