Reading the most charming book right now called “Hector and the Search for Happiness” by François Lelord. Hector is a psychiatrist trying to figure out why so many patients he treats never seem to find happiness. So he decides to travel the globe in order to find the answer. He writes down whatever he learns such as “Lesson no. 1: Making comparisons can spoil your happiness”, “Lesson no. 2: Happiness often comes when least expected”. And so on.
He meets friends and strangers from China to Africa to Paris and the U.S. And he often asks them if they are happy, although he has to be careful who he asks because it upsets some people to be asked that. He also notices that men laugh and women cry when he asks them that. He meets a friend of his, a young doctor in Africa, and notices he is quite a happy man. Why? Because .... he’s doing a job he loves and he knows he’s doing it well, he feels useful working in Africa, he gets along with the people, he feels loved for who he is and..... for him, every day has meaning.
A light bulb moment for us. Every day has meaning. That is a perspective we carry around with us, and have for many years. Even in our worst times, when the emotional pain was so intense, we felt that every day still had meaning. Life is not trivial or mundane for us. We don’t work 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, in a meaningless job. We don’t live a typical life – husband, children, home, job. For us, every day is about growth and learning and appreciating who is in our life, and where we live and our beautiful cat who we love so much. Life is full of things. Some of them are “small” but often bring us the most pleasure. A cup of tea, an interesting novel, walking in the rain with the best rubber boots and rain pants and a really pretty umbrella, watching an animal show on tv (which makes Tee Tee (3) very happy). The children Inside especially make us happy. They are so much fun to have around. They appreciate the “little” things in life. When Lance visits us for lunch, the kids wait at the window for him to come. They talk and giggle while they wait. Maybe they will talk about Lance’s car and what colour it is. Or if a new friend is coming they will talk about what that friend looks like.
We feel blessed to have this perspective. Don’t know if you read our post or remember us talking about Victor Frankl. He was in a concentration camp and he watched and learned who fared better than the others. He discovered a lot of it was due to the person’s attitude or perspective on things, what they believed in life. Maybe they too saw every day as having meaning. They also seemed to be able to feel compassion for others even when they were suffering too.
Feeling compassion for other people is one of our favourite things in the world. It makes us feel so good and so deep down. We are caught up in someone else’s story and what could be more interesting than that. We feel very connected to that person and it just brings all these wonderful feelings up for us. People sometimes apologize for talking about their suffering. They think they make other people depressed if they talk about their pain. But not for us. We would rather hear that than someone talking about the weather or other “superficial” sorts of things. Mind you the weather can be pretty important too but you know what we mean. It’s when people talk about how they are really feeling deep down. Whether they are in pain and depressed or they are experiencing joy and contentment in their life, it is the authenticity that connects us to each other.
We have our former psychiatrist to thank for some of this. She was also so positive, so supportive, so validating. She was always reminding us that this is where you are at right now. She made us feel that we were just fine the way we were. When we sometimes felt like we were doing something wrong she would explain how she saw things. She would say things like – you are trying to cope with everything that’s coming up. This is what you need to do right now. It was amazing. And she did it for 17 years. Even when we had conflict between us, which was rare, she would have compassion for us. She worked hard to understand wherever we were at. She was quite a gift.
And now we have those tools, those ways of being, like she did. Feeling compassion for others, getting caught up in their stories is immensely gratifying. And it is about our own growth too. Always. People are mirrors for each other. Our stories teach each other. We learn about ourselves by listening to other people. Even when we feel depressed we still get out of bed in the morning and wonder what might transpire today, what might we learn today, what might we experience. How lucky we are.
Every day does have meaning. We just have to be there and be aware and open ourselves up to whatever comes our way. It’s really quite amazing.
No comments:
Post a Comment