Happiness is Memorable

2 views
Skip to first unread message

da5zeay

unread,
Mar 7, 2005, 10:04:07 PM3/7/05
to happine...@googlegroups.com
Someone once mentioned to me that the human mind has a tremendous
capacity for remembering the good things in life, and is pretty good at
forgetting the minor bumps. I'm not so sure that's true in general, but
I like to think that the way we choose to live our lives affects what
we remember and cherish the most. We can take the best of our
experiences and use them to propel us forward, or we can dwell on the
horrors and be afraid.

I think it's good to pause and take stock, and remember which side that
you've chosen to stand on, and to remember our family, friends, and
neighbors for the good memories, to be thankful for the time you have
together, and be unafraid in planning new good things even when things
are low. It's wonderful that we have the opportunity to do this.

It's one of those bittersweet kind of things to reflect upon, I think,
but it's like salt and watermelon: a little saltiness makes the
sweetness all the more so.

da5zeay

unread,
Mar 9, 2005, 1:34:43 PM3/9/05
to happine...@googlegroups.com
A friend of mine was asking me whether I'd tried a certain new
community bank on my road, "you know, the one where McDougal's Market
used to be". No, I hadn't.

Driving back home the next day, I saw the bank and remembered the old
market. It had already been closed by the time I'd moved here, boarded
up and marked with CONDEMNED signs. A cab driver told me once how "Old
Man McDougal tried to collect for insurance, but forgot to turn off his
security cameras.'

As I passed by, I reflected on the transient nature of things.
McDougal's was no doubt some kind of landmark in this area, but within
a year of it being razed, it's so easily forgotten...any accomplishment
or association with McDougal's has become as a ghost: detached from
physicality, irrelevant in day-to-day life.

I wonder if happiness needs a kind of physical anchor. Perhaps this is
people, encountered in the day-to-day. Maybe it's a favorite object. It
strkes me that it's useful to have something in the routine that
reminds us that we're happy, or moving toward it, as a kind of
reassurance.

Message has been deleted

Think_n_See

unread,
Mar 10, 2005, 11:56:19 PM3/10/05
to happine...@googlegroups.com

HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU'RE MOVING?

In your day-to-day life, how do you know that you're taking steps -
real steps - to where you want to go? How do you measure or even
notice that incrementalness that goes between last second and this
second, or sometimes between yesterday and today.

There's a whole philosophy out there summed up by the term "The Game of
Work" (of the book by Chuck Coonradt). The philosophy is that you can
measure yourself on the things in order to improve your effectiveness
on those things. Whether how many clients you bring in per month, how
much faster the website loads, or how many crate you stack in an hour,
you can measure progress and improve your results.

Weight watchers works because they tell their members to measure and
write down their foods - to pay attention to, and see the improvement.
Ben Franlkin supposedly took stock of his qualities - good and bad -
every evening before bed, and analyzed what he had done that day to
move in the direction he wanted to go.

--
I used to for a long, long time not be able to see the realness of the
phrase 'what are you grateful for?' I used to find that to be a cheesy
question - like something that you *should* be asking yourseld because
it's the kind of question a nice, good person might ask, but not a
question that's fun!

And then, I recently changed my thinking.

Your body knows progress when you pause and let it notice the progress
- like my muscles feel looser, or I look taller in the mirror, or my
hair is fuller. Your mind knows progress when you pause and let it
notice the progress - I'm a calmer person these days, I don't hold
grudges, I am more spontaneous these days.

So... now I believe in noticing (this is a slightly different thought)
the small steps of progress that get you from A to B. If I want to
write a book, then writing a Table of Contents is progress, and is
WORTH CELEBRATING. If I've contacted 13 agents, then that is worth
celebrating. If I've written the book proposal, then that is worth
celebrating.

Those small steps - and recognizing them - are what tell my mind that I
am succeeding in what I most want to succeed in - because if I don't
celebrate the small steps, then at one point, in a bad mood I may look
around and say, "hey, and where does this get me?" But if I am
constantly proving to myself that yes, I'm on the right track... then
that's going to drive me even in those few moments when I may not know
- even in those few moments of slush and of backward motion, which
happens to everyone.

Success breeds success - check out the recent "Confidence" by Rosabeth
Moss Kanter. When I've told myself that I'm moving in the right dir, I
start to recognize and point all my antenna in that dir, and things get
more and more focused - and move more and more the way I want them
to!!!

(I had a great vision just now of me with my antenna - I mean you've
never seen me - you only read my words... maybe I have lots of antenna
and I'm from that faraway galaxy that's just been discovered.) :)

da5zeay

unread,
Mar 11, 2005, 1:08:55 AM3/11/05
to happine...@googlegroups.com
Great post!

I think a related theme is "you define success, not others!" This is
easier said than done, but when one finally is able to do it, great
things start to happen. Success is a continuum of effort, not an
overnight phenom.

Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages