Trinity of Happiness

Yesterday, would have been such a wonderful day to play hooky but maybe that's what I've been doing all along.  Stumbling through my days waiting for the proverbial ship to come in to the harbor, I scream "Where is that bloody ship?"  Lately, a lot of days open onto an entire ocean of sand.  No ships here.  This ocean of sand has become one nightmarish sandbox.  My fellow playmates are too busy throwing sand at each other to figure out that sand throwing is a terrible idea.  Standing in the thick of it, I throw sand like everybody else.  Not a very productive way to spend a life, is it?  It's no surprise that happiness has been elusive.

So, yesterday,  I slogged through interruptions, melt-downs, whining, frustration and boredom, (not all of that mine), to finally tackle a task I've been avoiding:  define happiness.   Instead of approaching this task with eagerness, I had procrastinated.  Why?  I didn't really know and so the task ahead had two parts:  first, I must define happiness and  second, find out why I didn't want to.   This is what I discovered.

My Trinity of Happiness

1.) Connections
2.) Meaningful work
3.) Health



Determining the ingredients for my brand of happy was easier than I thought. It was also incredibly obvious to me that these three things were equal in importance.  No hierarchy here.  Their overlapping spheres of influence became my personal trinity of happiness.  Apparently, the number three was the number of the day.

Realizing that each ingredient for happiness was multifaceted, I looked at each of my ingredients and decided to break each down into three subcategories.

Connections

1.) Family
2.) Friends
3.) God/Self and the Universe.

Meaningful Work

1.) Clear Purpose
2.) Serving a Greater Good
3.) A Personal Passion

Health

1.) Physical
2.) Mental
3.) Spiritual

After all the procrastination and resistance, determining what happiness meant to me wasn't difficult.  What was difficult was realizing that I wasn't doing a very good job chasing it.  My poor job performance was the reason I hadn't wanted to define happiness.  When I finally did, I had to accept that I had a lot of work ahead of me. At first, that realization left me wanting to take a nap.  Today, I'm intrigued by the challenge.

Last night as our book group met to discuss The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin,
I was reminded of two truths that are so profound that I like to forget them.  (It is so easy for the mind and soul to fall back into old and often bad habits.)

"Happiness doesn't always make you feel happy." (Rubin.p.79)

and

 ". . . challenge brings happiness . . .it allows you to expand your self-definition." (Rubin. p. 78)

After a little quality Just 10 time with myself, forcing me into positive reflection, I'm ready to strap my trinity of happiness to my back and get back in the game.  I've had enough of the sandbox.