Are Most People Happy?

Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven." The practical translation: put in some effort to both seek out happiness-boosting experiences and learn to express gratitude for what you find. There will always be crap lying around in your life. This will never go away. If you focus on it, your world will become Emerson's hell.

Lately, I have felt my attitudes drift a little closer to that hell Emerson spoke about. Rather than launch into a lengthy page by page account, let me just say, I have my struggles. Such is the nature of life. My struggles range from settling in with my mom's death, trying to handle all those things that piled up on me this last year caring for her and having her pass, to finding my way as I enter into a new phase in my life, my home is no longer full of children and believe it or not, this is not easy for me. Add things like aging, the emotional effects of seeing a good share of my life behind me, wondering where I want my future to go, re-structuring where Man with a drill works and trying to set goals, I have felt overwhelmed and depleted.

I am deep feeling, full of passion. I'm stubborn or determined, which ever you choose. And living my life in a rich and full capacity is important to me. I do not want to waste one minute of my life. I'm a doer and I don't want to miss one single ounce of joy this life has to offer. Because of that I am filled with a sense of urgency. Life passes quickly. I feel that every day and I want to make the most of it.

Today I had an interesting experience. Let me start with the subject of prayer. I believe in it. I rely on it!  And oddly enough it's something I enjoy doing. Age has made me appreciate it's viable power! I cling to it and have a deep sense of gratitude that it's available to me every second of every day. I can honestly say, I love praying, I love talking to my Father in Heaven and do not take His help lightly. I see His hand in my life every day and I know prayer works.

I've been reading a book, "Increase In Learning" by David A. Bednar. I bought it and downloaded it on my iPad. It has powerful wisdom in it. This morning I read some instruction that counseled me to pray for eyes to see and ears to hear. It was in cased in one of the beginning chapters aimed at teaching people to harness the spiritual power available to each one of us as we make our day to day decisions. So I did. I prayed today for eyes to see and ears to hear.

This morning I got a phone call from a good friend asking me to come up to her house and run. She lives on a big hill. She knows I have a love hate relationship with hills, so she invites me to come and do hills. I hate them, but ironically I need them in my training. Life is always symbolic.

I drove to her house this morning, we got out on the road and we got our heart rates up and going as we made our way first down and then up the hill. When we finished our four miles and got to the top of the mountain, just under the base of Big Ben, I stopped to look over the valley and was astounded at the sight. As I stood there I realized my eyes saw something different, or maybe it was my heart that felt different as my eyes saw clearly.

As I stood there I thought about what I had prayed for that morning and with what my eyes now saw I was reminded God hears and answers my prayers. As I looked over the valley, spiritual insight accompanied the beauty of the scene. I could see clearly into my life for a split second, I could see things I needed. I could see attitudes that weren't profitable. Right in that moment, I felt the spirit and the subtle joy that spirit brings and I could see things I needed to go home and do. All in a split second. It felt good and I made a mental note.

After gazing at the beauty of the morning, we turned and made our way to my friends house and she invited me in. I needed water, so even though I was in a hurry to get home, I disregarded that nagging feeling to get going and went inside.

When I walked into her kitchen, I saw my friends husband dishing up a bowl of soup. He was working from home, something he doesn't often get to do and as I sat down to visit a story unfolded. He started telling me about going to Siberia for four months with his work.

"Siberia?" I said. I rattled off something about having no desire to travel there and preceded to ask him a million questions. That's when he started to tell me about a conversation he shared with a woman he sat next to on one of his bus rides to his motel from his work.

The woman he sat next to had opened up an interesting conversation with a question. She quietly asked "Why aren't Americans happy?"

My friend responded, "What makes you think Americans aren't happy?"

She proceeded to talk long and hard about all of the self-help books we have available in this country and launched into an account of how many phychiatrists there are in America, how many counselors we have and family therapists. She went on and on about how Americans are always looking for more and wanting more. She told my friend it seems like no matter how much Americans have they are never happy with it. She had lots of insight as to how Americans are never satisfied. She told my friend, "just open up any magazine in America and you can read it in the lines between the print."

My friend couldn't argue with her, so he posed a question back, "Well then," he said. "Why are Russians for the most part, happy?"

As this man, large in stature, sitting across the table from me started into her response, suddenly emotion stopped him cold in his sentence. He got so choked up, he couldn't speak. I sat there for what seemed like a long time. My heart suddenly felt softened as I watched the tears fall from his eyes. Then he spoke.

Her response, he said . . . "We enjoy today."

He stopped again. He was visibly struggling with trying to controll the tears that continued to form. Then he went on.

"Because tomorrow might be worse," She said.

Suddenly I thought about Russia and I felt cold, lonely and hungry.

Then my friend launched into the deeper meaning his story would tell.

He said at the time her comments didn't have much meaning. It wasn't until he had lived in Siberia for a week that her words started to impact him in a literal way.

At the motel he was staying at he was required to turn his room key in every time he left the building. The first morning he left for work he had complained to the manager that he couldn't get a hot shower. He said at best the water was barely tempid. He has a trouble with his shoulders and was missing his American HOT water that pours from his own beloved tap any time he turns the knob!

The second day he went to turn his key in he noticed a sign on the desk. It read, "We hope this won't inconvenience you, but for the next three days there will be no hot water."

My friend thought about the wording, "Inconvenience?" The manager told him that there was a shower in the basement that was self heating and he could travel from the fourth floor down to use it if he wanted to. The second day he did so at 2:30 in the morning to avoid the long line. He said the water temperature was tempid at best and the place was filthy. He hated going down in such conditions to get his tempid, so called, hot water.

By the way, the water temperature in Siberia is 15 degrees colder than our water temperature here. Just a side note, water that is colder than 32 degrees eliminates the need for soap, because once it's colder than 32 degrees soap no longer works.

After the three days passed he again went to turn his key in. Again there was a sign. This time it read, "We are sorry to inconvience you but for the next three days there will be NO water." My friend discovered the government controlls the water, and the water temperature. In fact the government controlls EVERYTHING!

He was then instructed to go and fill up his tub with cold water and was given a bucket so he could dip water from the tub to flush the toilet for the next three days. By the way, when you are taking a shower in Siberia you don't open your mouth. Enough said.

After telling me his saga with just trying to bathe, he then proceeded to tell me all about trying to buy groceries there. He said he spent more time going back and forth to the market, traversing the empty shelves than he spent working. He said it was a major ordeal tying buy something to eat. He had to travel to the market every day in hopes maybe one day he'd find eggs, or maybe juice, some substatial items he could take home and cook. He said it took a week just to wait for a box of saltine crackers to appear on the shelf.

At the end of his tale he told me when he finally got back to America and went in our local market to buy groceries, he stood on the cracker isle and cried. He said, "It was overwhelming to me the amount of different crackers available for me to buy. He said he stood there in a stupor not knowing which box to pick. He said, "Americans are spoiled and ungrateful!" I didn't need him to translate all the meaning in that statement.

At the end of his story he recounted the woman's words, "We enjoy today . . . because tomorrow might be worse."

At that moment I realized my ears had heard him loud and clear and my heart had made a vast translation.

I am not going to go into a lengthy paragraph as to what I gleaned from sitting there at my friend's kitchen table that morning. I will say it altered my thinking as new thoughts and ideas were presented to me in a way different from any other day. The spirit was there and I had eyes to see and ears to hear. It changed my attitude.

Tonight I sat in my big jetted tub surrounded by soothing hot water, I soaked longer than usual. There was gratitude in my heart as I sat there and thought about all the blessings that surround me. Those simple little blessings I don't often notice.

Tonight I found the above picture. Four of those boys packing my mom's casket are mine. The picture is filled with meaning to me. It reminds me, I am alive. And when I look at it, I am motivated to clearly see and hear happiness all around me and like Emerson said, find my heaven.