Today I played Mat Kearney's Young Love album in the background as I did some work. And I liked it. It was light, and easy to listen to, and bright and chirpy--a turn away from the direction that I normally poise my melancholy-loving ears towards. And you know what's happiness? I believe happiness is in the little things.
Happiness is when you have some work to do so that you're not too bored, and not too overwhelmed. Happiness is when your tea is just nice; not too cold or too sweet and not too hot or too bland. Happiness is in the little things, and not the exaggerated.
Happiness is about trivial things.
Sure, extreme happiness is still happiness, but there's probably a more apt word for it flying so far out of my reach that I cannot possibly know or use it.
But perhaps the more persistant happiness, that leaves you feeling good a longer time than great for a moment, is the happiness of the little things.
Just as I saved my work and handed it in, the last song on Kearney's album ended. And then I smiled, because these things make me smile. I like it when my music ends accidentally in sync with the end my task. I love it that as I open my front door after a long journey back home, the seconds on my itouch wind down coincidentally to zero.
And if you can learn to be content with trivial things at the zeros, then one day, you'll truly learn the words to describe contentment and happiness at extreme levels.
Incidentally, I've written once about Happy and Happenstance, which both originally pointed to some form of accident or luck. Which is to say, Happiness happens to us, from external sources acting on or toward us.
