When’s the last time you were happy? What makes you happy? Who was the last person to ask if you are happy?
I asked and answered all of these questions over the last several days as I was thinking about the best piece of advice I could give an extremely special person in my life who is half my age: my daughter.
A tough, no-nonsense character who does not suffer fools gladly, my daughter decided eight years ago she was going to live in New York City and set about making it happen.
She saved money, she moved in with two guys in Astoria, and when New York knocked her on her butt the way it often does, she got up, dusted herself off, and refocused her goals.
Today, she is raising an almost-5-month-old daughter with her husband, working remotely, earning twice as much as I make and sounding every bit like a New Yorker (although she’s still a Pats fan).
If there is any advice the people who love her can offer, it is to ask for help and don’t be such-a-do-it-yourselfer. My musings over the last few days prompt me to offer another piece of advice: Make time to be happy.
Life gets crowded, especially in your 30s, and every task you aspire to in youth looms like the Matterhorn: Am I a good parent? Am I a good worker? How do I make this person happy? How am I going to afford this and pay for that?
Parenting turns into grandparenting, jobs and money come and go. Happiness endures throughout our lives if we are willing to prioritize it and work for it.
“You are only as happy as you want to be,” I once heard someone say (or maybe I read it in Reader’s Digest). But I let those words bounce around my brain this week as I took in the debate over sports and mental health and the swirl of attention around U.S. Olympic gymnast Simone Biles.
Sitting at the top of her sport, adored by fans, and dominating social media, Biles looked painfully uncomfortable on Tuesday night as television recorded for global viewing her decision not to compete.
Viewed from afar, Biles seems like someone who should be the happiest person on Earth. But watching her grimace and frown the other night made me wonder how she would answer the questions I asked at the start of this column.
I’ve met millionaires who are never happy and I know people confined to wheelchairs who are eternal optimists. Somewhere in between them lies the secret we should all grasp and hold onto.
Happiness, if I’ve learned anything in my 60 years, means learning how to let go. If we have to hold onto anything in this life, it probably means it is trying to escape us and we will ultimately have to surrender it.
I’ve learned that if I let go of certain desires, I can also let go of fears that plague me. If I forget about what happened yesterday, I don’t have to worry so much about tomorrow. What does all this mean in terms of offering advice to my daughter? I guess I would tell her to find joy in life’s moments. That sounds corny, but think about it: The secret for all of us — me, you, Simone Biles, and my daughter — is to keep looking for the positive and searching for happiness until we realize it’s all around us, just waiting for us to seize it.
