Small Pleasures

Today I am intensely grateful for the small pleasures of every day life - hiking the Abyss in patches of sunshine and glorious autumn colours, the taste of rich, dark chocolate, watching the dogs run and play on the trail, finding and exploring brand new trails, a hot lavender scented bubble bath, the coziness of my home.

But I ask myself, why do I call them "small" pleasures. Surely, given the joy and serenity they create in my heart, they are large, immense, gargantuan pleasures. I am blessed that I can create such enormous joy and happiness so very easily.

Book Review: The Happiness Project

I'm a writer - and a reader. So it stands to reason that I'm going to write about the books I read, especially now that I have more time and will be purchasing even more books. (Reader alert: buy Chapters/Indigo stocks now!)

I recently finished reading The Happiness Project. I'd been resisting it - just another one of those "by-the-numbers-self-help-books" I thought. Well, gentle reader, was I ever right!

I'm not going to pan this book completely. After all I read the whole thing and if it had been all that bad, I would have given up at chapter 2 or 3. The book gave a few helpful tips but to wrap an entire book around a couple of items is, I think, a rather audacious idea. But I do think it fits into the current North American mindset: give me a pill; give me a quick fix; make it easy; I want step by step easy to follow instructions.

There is no magic pill. The answers are inside and we have to do the work to listen, to discover who we are and then to be the best "me" we can be and from that solid base to do the best we can.

What I found particularly curious about The Happiness Project was its utter lack of happy. It's a very serious book. You won't get any smiles or laughter out of it. The writer is a researcher - hence an analyzer with a large dollop of controller tossed in. I lost track of how many times she used the phrase "Studies show that...." but I promise you it was at least a dozen times too many. It's just not a joyous or uplifting book - and I think that it ought to be.

On the other hand, this book will have great appeal for people who like charts and graphs and who hate to go on a trip without a road map, GPS system and overnight bookings for every stop along the way. If you actually have to schedule in spontaneity, you'll probably get a lot out of this book, like more efficient ways to schedule your moments of serendipity.

And good for Gretchen Rubin. She has successfully tapped into a zeitgeist - people are forming Happiness Project support groups all over the U.S. - which, I am sad to think, says a lot about the state of happiness today.

Done! (well, almost)

I'm so pleased with myself. The cleanup is complete - or as complete as it can be until I take everything to the recycling depot. That's on the agenda for next week.

I wonder why it is that throwing things out always makes me feel so good - much, much better than accumulating more stuff? Interestingly, most people I talk to would agree with me. So then, when we're feeling down, why do we go shopping (retail therapy)? Wouldn't we be better served to get rid of stuff - give it away, toss it, recycle it? And it's better for the planet too.

As a matter of fact, I've left just a tiny bit of clutter here and there (mostly there - there being the kitchen - the last place I cleaned so I was running out of steam) just so that I could make myself feel good again in the future by tossing more stuff.

Okay, I'll tell the truth - I could have thrown out more paper too. But I hit the "feel good" level and that's Goody enough for now.

A Closer Walk with God

This is one of my favourite photos taken from the Maple Mountain trail. This is one of the places I hike. People have asked me why I hike -  I'm passionate about it and I've been doing it for years. As I have more time for myself now, I'll be hiking even more.

Reason number one - see above photo. It's the sheer beauty of it. In my experience, two legs will take me to places of beauty that no other transportation can equal. And visual beauty speaks to my soul. It overwhelms me with feelings of gratitude. When I look out on a vista like this, I feel truly blessed. I feel closer to God - whoever or whatever he or she is.

I also hike because the act of walking, especially for long periods of time, puts me a state of semi-meditation. Some - actually most - of my creative ideas come to me while I hike. I remember hiking on the slopes of Mount Garibaldi some years ago when the entire and complete lyrics of a song dropped into my mind (heart). I wrote them out when I got home and they went on to win first prize in a radio contest. Garibaldi, like Rainier, is one of the sacred mountains.

All of this brings me around to God. I was thinking, a few weeks ago when I was signing up for Yoga classes, about the universal desire to have a direct experience of God. Buddhists meditate and Christians pray and all manner of people fast - and people take mind altering substances - all to have that direct experience.

Those who achieve the state - nirvana in the Buddhist tradition - report a kind of ecstasy - an understanding of God and the universe and themselves and - well - everything. Bliss.

I wondered if I had ever had that fleeting experience. I'm not sure. I think I've been close. At any rate, the entire point is to be one with God and to realize that you are, indeed, God. Now I believe this to be true - I have always believed this - and not only intellectually. I feel pretty darn sure that we are all one and we are all God. So , my question is, does it matter if I have a direct experience of God? As long as I know who I am, is that good enough? After all, I am happy; I feel blessed. I am excited about life. I love the feeling of going to sleep at night; I love getting up in the morning. I love my dog and my friends and reading and writing and truthfully, the list could go on forever (always ending in chocolate, of course - it has to end with chocolate).

I wonder if that is good enough. Just knowing. Or is it Goody enough?

Could be

Let the Cleanup Begin

No, this is not the "before" photo - this is the after. I prowled through my closet and my chest of drawers and filled three immense green plastic garbage bags almost to overflowing.

And still, I fear I may not have been as ruthless as I should have been. This is the beginning of a great "throwing away of junk" project that feels necessary to my new, freer status. But still - look at the far right of this photo - see all those clustered hangers? Yes, I know, I need to divest myself of those as well.

I tend to have a philosophy that if I can't see it, it's not really clutter. So when you walk into my house, it all looks rather charming and quite tidy if you ignore the stacks of books everywhere. However, you don't necessarily want to inspect inside the closet or open the kitchen junk drawer and junk cupboard. Yup - I actually have a junk cupboard.

That's all going to change. I am going to arm myself with garbage bags (note to self - purchase more garbage bags) and clean it all out. I will take it all to the dump (known as the Cedar Landfill if you want to be politically correct) and I will even shell out the sheckles required to allow me to add my garbage to the mound. I feel lighter just thinking about it!

A thought or two about retirement

Retirement (noun): meaning what exactly? "I'm tired again?

I prefer to think of it as getting new tires. Last year I got new winter tires for my car. It was the first time I had ever driven a vehicle with proper winter tires. "Bring on the snow" I yelled at the sky, knowing of course, and mentioning it to the nice man at Kal Tire, "Now that I have winter tires it won't snow all season."

And, of course, it didn't. So that's how I feel about my new set of tires. I am re-tired with brand new treads and I'll tell you, these treads will take on anything - mud, snow, ice, squabbles, gales, tantrums, rants - but of course, now that I am re-tired, none of that will happen. The sun will shine, all good things will come my way and I shall live happily ever after - probably with someone I haven't even met yet.

Don't expect this blog to be a conventional guide to anything. If you want an actual "guide" to re-tirement, I'm sure Dummies has a manual for it. This will be my personal account - what it's like for me. I'm 64 and single. I live in the country, above a stable, with my dog, Abby. I live a blessed life that is about to get a whole heap more blessings piled on it.

I don't know exactly what to expect from re-tirement but my expectations are high. I can tell you what I do not anticipate: playing golf, sitting back on the couch and clicking the remote; RVing; afternoons at the seniors centre quilting and carpet bowling.

I'm thinking of hang gliding next year.

Vulnerability

My big challenge today is to invite people to read my blog. I anticipate this great event with as much joy and relish as I do sticking my fingers down my throat so that I can expel my most recent meal.

I have always had this fear of exposing myself. What if people look at me and say, "Ugh - put it back!" Or, more likely, "You are so pathetic." Better yet. "Why on earth are you blogging? What makes you think you have anything even remotely interesting to share?"

Yesterday I read that if you insist on being a blogger, you have to blog every day. So here I am, setting myself up for rejection every day. The voice inside my head - and, believe me, this voice is an old, familiar friend, says. "You're not good enough."

pause

"You're really not good enough."

I listened to it in bed last night when I woke up at about 2 a.m. I listened until it morphed into "Not Goody enough."

Aha!

Gotcha!

I'm not Goody enough. And that's my first "retirement project." To be Goody enough. To be Goody all the time. Just me. Just what you see is what you get. Just to be blessed by being who I am and loving the Goody that I am.

Welcome to my blog.