Tuesday, July 11, 2006

How to Be Happy

Life has been tough in the past two years, but I have recently discovered two perfectly legal ways to "get happy". One is a kind of forced meditation, the other is opening up to ones' own life experience.

1. Simply to sit down and force yourself to remember happy days. I mean specific days, the ones which make life worth living (My Mother hugging me and telling me she would always love me as her son, gay or not; lying one night with he who still remains the love of my live and thanking God; seeing the sun rise over the Dead Sea as I climbed Masada with a group of incandescent UNF students,....There are so many more.) Try it when you are depressed.

2. The other came about, rather oddly, when I was bored in a Lakeland Motel recently. I began to read Job in the Gideons's Bible there (which I stole - I hope that's OK). Lo and behold, I have not actualy tried to read the King James version for 30 years. But, to try to put this humbly, my reading ability has improved a lot since I was 15. The translation is sheer, almost overwhelming, poetry.

1 comment:

Jessica said...

Masada remains one of my favorite memories as well, Paul. I value our trip to Israel all the more now that it seems unlikely I'll get to return there anytime soon.