Karl Menninger once said that if you were miserable, the thing to do was to go “across the tracks and find someone to help.”  That seems to be at least part of the case in an article on the LiveScience Blog.  Apparently not filthy lucre (we already knew that, didn’t we?) but giving it away floats the happiness boat.

Happiness is a Warm Story We Tell

Fifteen years ago in Minneapolis I ran a rehab center in a jail.  If you were there in evening free time you would see (this was a work-release section) the “residents”  sitting in the glassed in dining room playing cards, laughing, telling jokes, and have a merry old time.  Now, if you went in and asked if they were happy, as they say, their smiles turned upside down and you’d receive a resounding “no.”

I know this is true. It was a question I often asked. Their answer never fit with the “cheeriosity” that was going on a moment before.

We are about as happy as the story we are buying into at the moment, whether conscious or not.

Pursuit of Happiness

• Could it be the “pursuit of happiness” that is the root of all our misery?

• That what we get will never make us as happy as what we give?

• Or the attempts we all make to escape our fears, our anxieties, or our anger?

• Would it make more sense to take each way we feel when it is there, accept it for what it is – exploding neurons and floods of neurotransmitters – and maybe use it as information?

The big trouble with the pursuit of happiness is that it is a lot faster than we are.

Just a few random thoughts on a day when I am not feeling so hot myself.  But, it’s not a story.  I swear!

Today’s Photo Credit — Warm n’ Fuzzy

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