You Can't Put A Price On Happy

Yesterday I just finished a run on the treadmill and the wife was out in the kitchen working on ebay. I had the radio up and one of her songs came on. She started dancing and before you know it, I was out there too getting my groove on. You can't put a price on happy. 

If there is one thing that I have learned is that you don't wait for the right time to have fun. Just have fun and it will become the right time. It matters not how your day is going. Having a laugh, engaging in a meaningless activity, or simply taking a break and smile, your day will become brighter. And we need more of that. Somehow we have lost the art of fun. We double down on keeping busy. We overbook out calendar. We text, we don't call and we seldom make time for the little things. How did we get so off course?

There was a time when I was growing up that you couldn't find me surrounded by friends having fun. Even as a young adult, I still valued the company of others. And while I am now in my 50's, I still honor the space of a deep conversation. It's connection. It's creativity. It is happiness.

While I very much enjoy my solitude and a meditative life now, I enjoy the randomness of others. I like to see people happy. I like to cheer for them. But it seems that we are all preoccupied. We are so busy thinking about the next moment, that we forget to live in this moment. We are so engrossed in the cyber world, that we don't use our eyes for this world. We don't live in the moment and we postpone happiness for vacations. That is not healthy.

The amount of clients I see in my private practice due to unhappiness is unreal. While it is real, I am left thinking that this cannot be. Relationships sidelined because of extra online interest. Feeling unfulfilled at our place of employment because we're too busy looking for a new place of employment. We pray for the things that we don't have, but don't give thanks for all we do have. We say I'll be happy when, and when the when comes along, it is never enough. 

You can't put a price on happiness. And all you need to be happy is a mindset. I have worked far too long in mental health to see the value of happy. I have met the terminally with better attitudes than many of us. I have watched the incarcerated volunteer to try and make someone who is less fortunate feel better. I have sat with the unemployed and laughed for hours over the simple things. All of this has shown me that happiness resides in the here and now. 

So maybe, just maybe when you feel the urge to dance, you'll dance. Or maybe you'll put the phone down when you're having dinner with your family. And perhaps you'll include on your list of things to do today, something to do that is fun. Because you can't put a price on happy. And you don't want to find yourself at the end of your life realizing you could have had it all along for free.