February 13, Happiness

Text of page 193 on Happiness:
Dark thoughts or light? Worms or sky?

Sometimes dark thoughts are interesting, in spooky dramas or Stephen King novels. I've "raised" and kept and released worms. But if one's waking moments, meals, thoughts, bedtime stories and dreams are dark and negative, their children will be better off in school. It's one thing to go to goth night at the dance club. It's another thing to practice negativity and live (sort of live) in disdain of bright joy or humor.

If you were custom-designing a grandmother, for example, as in "I Sing the Body Electric," by Ray Bradbury, or the related "The Electric Grandmother," would you want a happy one or a cynical, whiney one?

If you're making a decision in some moment, for example, as in the next decision you make concerning your family, will you take the low road and have a low-energy, Eeyore moment? How much energy would it take to have a Pooh moment instead, or even a Tigger moment? Are you reading this from such a dark, cynical mindset that even a mention of Eeyore seems too cheery and upbeat to be endured? Prepare to go back to your black hole, then. Take your children to school, and stop on the way home for some black eyeliner and red eyeshadow. Don't say thank you at the check-out counter, either. Maybe just sleep the rest of the day, because life sucks.

Or don't! Maybe remember that every moment is precious and that you do indeed have choices and that you can for certain take joy in the sky as easily as you can be irritated about the ground.

If you were designing a parent for your child, wouldn't "happy" be pretty high on your list? SandraDodd.com/peace/mama
SandraDodd.com/morning

If you're reading this by e-mail and you need a path to the chatroom, click on the title to get to the blog, which has a tab up to the left with the link and password.