Happiness.

I spent some time yesterday changing this face of compassion and peace. I felt that the version I had produced had too many dark and sombre lines that took away from the calm I was seeking. I am now feeling a bit happier with what I have. This may not be the case for all who see it because I am very much aware that what makes one person happy is not what makes another feel the same. 

Yet it is a time of the year when we sincerely wish people a happy time.

A friend climbed on the bathroom scale after two weeks of butterless toast and chilly jogs around the park. The needle was still stuck on the number where he had started. This struck him as typical of how things had been going lately. It seemed he was destined never to be happy.

Facing the disappointment he decided to get dressed, scowling at the top button of his tight jeans. He found a £10 note in the pocket. Then a friend sent him a message with a funny story. 

He had to be somewhere and was running late and remembered that the car needed petrol but his wife had already filled the tank. And this was a man who thought he would never be happy.

Every day, it seems, we're flooded with pop-psych advice about happiness. The relentless message is that there's something we're supposed to do to be happy,  make the right choices, or have the right set of beliefs about ourselves.  

Coupled with this is the notion that happiness is a permanent condition. If we're not joyful all the time, we conclude there's a problem.

Yet the truth is that what most people experience is not a permanent state of happiness. It is something more ordinary, a mixture of what essayist Hugh Prather once called "unsolved problems, ambiguous victories and vague defeats, with few moments of clear peace."

Maybe you wouldn't say yesterday was a happy day, because you had a misunderstanding with somebody. But was there moments of happiness, moments of clear peace? Now that you think about it, was there not a message from an old friend?  Was there not a moment that made you smile how easy it is to remember you had a bad day and forget all those little happy moments. 

Happiness is like a visitor, a genial, exotic Aunt Tilly who turns up when you least expect her, orders an extravagant round of drinks and then disappears, trailing a lingering scent of gardenias. You can't command her appearance; you can only appreciate her when she does show up. 

And you can't force happiness to happen, but you can make sure you are aware of it when it does.

While you are walking home with a head full of problems, try to notice the sun striking the windows with a cheerful glow.  Listen to the shouts of children playing in the fading light, and feel your spirits rise, just from having paid attention.

Happiness is an attitude, not a condition. It's spending a pleasant hour organizing your closet. Happiness is your family assembled at dinner. It's in the present, not in the distant promise of a "someday when." 

How much happier we are,  and how much more happiness we experience, if we can fall in love with the life we're living.

Happiness is a choice. Reach out for it at the moment it appears, like a balloon drifting seaward in a bright blue sky.

I wish you a day full of happy moments.