HAPPY PLACES, BECAUSE WE NEED MORE THAN ONE

Happy places hard to find?

It’s the virus pandemic, the lockdown, broiling temperatures, and forest fires. It’s the political right, political left, the politically disconnected.

It’s President Trump, former VP Joe Biden, and the specter of a stealth third party candidate swaying the vote.

Anyone but you, right? You’d be in your happy places if it weren’t for everything else? You could be a decent person if everyone would just agree with you.

Really? Let me help clear things up.

You are a bully who thrills at making life miserable for others, and now you feel bad and no one cares. I see the problem. It’s memory.

You don’t remember being a jerk, but everyone else has a pretty clear picture.

The name calling and ridicule you showered on others made a difference to them. They didn’t like it at the time and don’t like the memory of it now.

But go ahead and work it out the best you can. Happy places need happy people. If you’re a lifelong bully, go ahead and find a shitty place. That’s where you’ll find your people, the agreeable ones.

Happy Places On The Map

Whether you know it or not, you’ve been a bully. It wasn’t a choice, but a response to situations. How do I know this? It’s based on experience, research, and an empty place that’s neither half full or half empty.

I know there’s something there. I can’t see it, or feel it, but I hear an echo. I did an exercise to figure it out. Exercise, both mental and physical, can have some astounding results.

If you have a self-image of being isolated and alone, but those around you are brimming with vigor and enthusiasm for whatever life brings next, do this check:

If you’ve alienated everyone you know, it might not be them.

If you see what looks like happy places for others, but feel like you’re not worthy, then it’s not a happy place.

If those closest to you behave like you may suddenly need sedation, they may be onto something.

You Have A Right To Happy Places

If you are lonely in a happy place, then it’s not a happy place.

On the other hand, if you are happy in a shitty place, then it’s not a happy place either. See what I did there?

Happy places with the sort of results that make you want to return start with a pledge. That’s right, a pledge. But before we make this trip, shift into emotional neutral.

It goes like this:

Count the people in your life that make it worth living. If you don’t have anyone, make a call.

If you don’t have anyone and feel like making any sort of effort is pointless, make this call.

Moving forward with the pledge, think of why the people you’ve listed are important to you, and why you are important to them. Keep it short this time around.

Ask yourself if you have room for anyone else? I know the answer: You do. I do, too.

Pledge to unhinge yourself from the past, from the things that went right, wrong, and sideways.

Forgive yourself for being too ignorant to see what’s been in front of your face. Every roadblock has two sides, and the road is blocked on both. Unless you’re digging a huge, dangerous, hole, take the roadblocks down.

You may not be blocking your way to happy places, but they might block someone else. If you feel that’s not your problem, there’s a couple of phone numbers to call above.

If you have regrets, admit them to yourself and pledge to do better. If you have sadness, hug it out with people you care about.

Don’t be surprised where and when you find happy places and who you find there. It might be in an Eastside basement with guitars. It might be in the passenger seat of a big pickup truck.

Why a truck? The first time I felt like a big boy was when my Grandpa took me for a drive in his truck and started pointed to things and explaining what we were looking at. I was ten years old. We drove the dirt roads of Central Oregon, logging roads. Grandpa was a logger and he opened the door.

He said something funny and I laughed so hard I snorted out my nose, which made him laugh harder than I’d ever heard. He laughed so hard he snorted out his nose. Instead of the Kleenex he handed me, he blew his nose in his hands and wiped them on the steering wheel.

“Won’t be long before you’re driving the truck and I’m in your seat,” he said.

I was happy in my seat, just like yesterday.