Happy is Better than Perfect

 This week's quote reads, "I don't want a perfect life. I want a happy life." Me too.

I mean... don't we all? Yet life is messy, chaotic, unpredictable, and we cannot dictate how it will turn out. The one thing we can predict with some certainty is that it will not be perfect. No-one's life is perfect. And so the important thing to realise is that settling for "good enough" will ensure that in the long run, we are far happier than we would be if we were constantly yearning for the "perfect" life.

Perfection is illusive. And elusive. Perfectionism is also what Brené Brown calls "the twenty ton shield" as we struggle for it without ever attaining it. I have blogged about this here. 

I think that the surest path to a happy life is to be content with less-than-perfect. To appreciate the small joys of our daily lives and notice them as they happen. Even when we feel overwhelmed and stressed, it is possible to find small moments of happiness in our day to day lives, if we are sufficiently awake and aware. I try to go for a walk most days and it never fails to lift my spirits to be outside in the natural world. There is always something new and beautiful to notice, even on the greyest day. And when I have finished my day's work, and settle down in my armchair to do some stitching or crochet, I try to remember to notice how lucky I am to have a warm home, enough money, and crafts which absorb me.

I am grateful for my happy life. It is not perfect, but it is absolutely good enough. And so, I am happy.

The Path to Contentment

This week's quote, by Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius, really speaks to my condition, as the Quakers say. It reads, "Think of what you have, rather than of what you lack! Of the things you have, select the best, and then reflect how eagerly you would have sought them if you did not have them."

The basic idea is about appreciating what we have, rather than continually chasing after what we don't. To appreciate what we have, we need to be awake and aware of the multiplicity of good things all around us. For example, I just (a couple of minutes ago) took the above photo of this week's postcard using my iPhone and sent it to myself via e-mail. A few seconds later, it was in my inbox and I was able to download it to my laptop, then select it and put it into this blogpost.

Which today, it is tempting to take completely for granted. But honestly - wow! At times like this, I am stunned by the miracle of modern computer technology. That I am able to take a photo of a physical object using my phone, and can then edit said photo, before sending it instantly to my inbox, download it, and use it. I am old enough to appreciate what a miracle this is. To realise how completely impossible it would have been in the days before the IT revolution. 

And that is one small and fairly frivolous example. I could offer a multitude of others - the instant connectivity that mobile phones bring us; the blue sky, white clouds and large and magnificent tree outside my window; the fact that I will be going to visit my two beautiful grandsons later this morning; that my husband has made a wonderful recovery from major surgery. There is so very much to appreciate. So very much to be grateful for. I realise how very blessed, how very privileged I am, to be me.

A wise Unitarian, John Naish, once wrote, "Enoughness is the path to contentment." And I think that is the nub of Marcus Aurelius's message. At times like this, I remember a prayer quoted by Rachel Naomi Remen in her book, My Grandfather's Blessings, which I have shared on here before:

Days pass and the years vanish

and we walk sightless among miracles.

Lord, fill our eyes with seeing 

and our minds with knowing.

Let there be moments when your Presence,

like lightning, illuminates

the darkness in which we walk. 

Help us to see, wherever we gaze,

that the bush burns, unconsumed.

And we, clay touched by God,

will reach out for holiness and

exclaim in wonder,

"How filled with awe is this place

and we did not know it."

May we all have the sight to perceive and appreciate the everyday miracles in our lives. Amen

Oh! To Be A Cat!

 This week's quotation, by 19th century novelist Samuel Butler, reads, "All living beings except man know that the main purpose of life is to enjoy it." And it is accompanied by a picture of a very contented looking cat - see below.

And, while I do not agree with Butler entirely - the purpose of life for many living beings seems to be either to survive long enough to procreate, and then die (like mayflies) or to not be eaten by another creature (like many small animals). Not much enjoyment there...

Nevertheless, I would agree with him in the case of much loved pets, such as cats and dogs. There is a cartoon showing a man taking his dog for a walk, with a thought bubble coming from the heads of each. And whereas the man is thinking about all kinds of things, oblivious of the beauty around him, unaware of the joy of the walk, the dog's thoughts are firmly fixed in the present - he is enjoying his walk with his human.

And cats seem to be the same... or at least, well-loved and pampered cats seem to be the same. If I believed in reincarnation, I would like to come back as a loved and spoiled cat. Like my Luna. Who seems to spend most of her life curled up on either my knee (if it is available) or a comfortable chair or bed. She is fed twice a day, and has the freedom to come and go as she likes, through the cat flap. She is entirely without responsibilities, except perhaps to keep us happy by seeming to enjoy our company.

When I'm feeling tired or stressed, I sometimes think wistfully that I would like to change places with her. But not seriously - I have learned to embrace my complex, wonderful life, and to appreciate that we have to "welcome and attend them all"  - both joys and sorrows, pleasures and frustrations - as Rumi says in his poem, The Guesthouse. Our ability to do this is what makes us human.

Learning to Live with Ourselves

 "The joyful one smiles when he is with his friends. The fortunate one smiles even when he is alone."

This, according to the Harenkalender, is a quote from Asiatic wisdom.

It is something I have rediscovered over the past few years - it didn't come naturally. Or at least, it did when I was a child, but was forgotten as I grew up and became the kind of person who needed the validation or approval of others to be happy. So I spent much of my teens, twenties and thirties and even forties doing what Brené Brown calls "acclimating" - learning to be a social chameleon, so that I fitted in with other people. And using alcohol to lubricate the journey. I now feel sad for that young woman, who believed that she had to suppress her own beliefs, her own opinions, in order to fit in, wasting her time chasing the elusive goal of popularity.

As I have written before, my spiritual journey began in the mid-noughties and has continued ever since. I now hope that I will never stop learning, never stop growing, never stop striving to be the best Sue Woolley I can be. And if that means that I am not popular, so be it.

I used to be terrified of solitude. I suffered from FOMO - the fear of missing out - and would drop everything to spend time with my friends. These days, I have rediscovered my natural ambiversion, and am just as happy to curl up with a book or sit in front of my laptop writing, as I am to be socialising. In fact, since I quit drinking in 2013, I have learned that I am happiest in my own company, or with one or two close friends or with my husband and children.

Of course, there is a difference betwen choosing to be alone and being forced into it. The recent pandemic has had many negative consequences, one of which was enforced solitude, which I blogged about here. It is only when we choose to be on our own that it can bring a smile. Because loneliness can be a terrible thing - it makes us feel unloved, unwanted, as though the world has passed us by. Whereas solitude, the ability to spend time alone, by our own choice, with the Spirit, can be wonderful. 

I have also come to appreciate silence and no longer feel the need to fill all the spaces in my life with words. I have found that sometimes, to sit in silence, either meditating or placidly crocheting, is to be at peace. I have learned to be at peace with myself and that is good.

 

Chasing after Perfection

 Late 19th / early 20th century author, Christian Morgenstern wrote, "Everything beautiful creates a thirst for even more perfect beauty and perfection."

Here's the thing, Herr Morgenstern - no, it doesn't. At least, it doesn't in me. I think this attitude is one of the traps of our consumerist society - we are never content with what we have. We are always thirsting after "even more".

But it is possible to refuse the bait, to step off the roundabout, to be content with what we already have. Which is beauty in abundance, all around us. Even sitting here in my bedroom, confined with Covid, I can look out of the window and see the beautiful shape of the tree in our garden, silhouetted against a glorious blue sky.

And you know what? That is enough for me. It doesn't make me immediately long for different views, more beauty. I take it into my mind and heart and appreciate the beauty right in front of me.

I believe that perfectionism is an evil which never allows us to be content with the "enough" all around us. I'm a great believer in "good enoughism". I'll do my best (and I do have pretty high standards) BUT once I have done my best, I let it go and submit it, send it (whatever *it* might be) out into the world.

Appreciating what we have and not always striving after elusive perfection is a perfect (ha!) recipe for happiness and contentment. 

Embracing the Ordinary

It is in the nature of many of us to strive for perfection, to work fervently towards a particular goal. And it is good that we aim high. But as George Bernard Shaw wrote, "Man can reach the highest peaks, but he cannot stay there long."

It is the nature of humankind to strive, to do our best, to keep moving forward, "onwards and upwards forever" as the old Unitarian maxim had it. Yet because the direction of life is always forward to the future, each time we achieve something, whether it is something small, or something huge, we find that life goes on, regardless. We achieve the goal - whether it is the publication of the book, the qualification, the new job, the new relationship - and then we have to learn to fold it in to our ordinary, everyday lives. Because nobody can live at the peak of emotions for any length of time - first of all, it is exhausting, and second of all, it will set us up for disappointment when we (inevitably) come down.

So what should we do? I believe that we should honour our achievements, our arrival at the peak, but hold them lightly at the same time. There's a lovely passage in C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, which illustrates this idea beautifully: Screwtape explains that what God wants of us is for us to live in the Present, where time meets eternity. He comments, "To be sure, the Enemy wants men to think of the Future too - just so much as is necessary for now planning the acts of justice or charity which will probably be their duty tomorrow. The duty of planning the morrow's work is today's duty; though its material is borrowed from the future, the duty, like all duties is in the Present... He does not want men to give the Future thier hearts, to place their treasure in it... His ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him."

He argues that it is the devil's job to make people "hag-ridden by the Future - haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth - ready to break the Enemy's commands in the present if by so doing we make him think he can attain the one or avert the other - dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes whose end he will not live to see."

So the trick (I think) is to continue to strive for the highest and best we know, but simultaneously to recognise that moments of high achievement are always, always transitory, and to accept that most of our lives will be lived at a more ordinary level. And that the ordinary (by which I mean our daily lives) is okay. More than okay - it is where we can find contentment.

 

Enough Already

You know how it sometimes happens: you receive a certain message / hear a certain idea. It can be from a Facebook post, a talk, an article, an address And once you have heard / read it, once it has squirreled its way into your consciousness, every other thing you hear or read seems to chime in to back it up or elaborate on it. Some may call it synchronicity, but I'm not so sure.

And it has happened to me this week, with the concept of Enoughness. At our District Annual General Meeting at Shrewsbury last Saturday, our Guest Speaker was Brighton Unitarian John Naish, author of a marvellous book called Enough: Breaking Free From The World Of Excess. In his entertaining and inspirational talk, John preached the doctrine of "practising enoughness in a world of more, more, more." He explained that instead of forever chasing after the next goal, the next project, the next gadget, we should appreciate what we have and be grateful. And that we should grow our gratitude by appreciating our bounty.

John commented that "gratitude is one of the select number of things in life for which we cannot actually get enough". Another is spiritual commitment. He argued that we needed to take the time to go deep spiritually, rather than skating over the surface, always trying out the next spiritual practice that promised peace and contentment. He illustrated this by joking: "There would have been little opportunity in 2nd century Nepal to say, 'Buddhism? Yeah, I've been exploring that. Really great, inspirational stuff. But then I wanted to try 'Shamanic Whirling', and both those classes are on a Wednesday evening, so ..."

He argued that spiritual exploration only bears fruit if we commit to certain practices, and stick with them. And he concluded by saying that "For me, and for many of you, I trust, Unitarianism has provided a central thread, a community, a tradition, and a discipline from within which we can explore the spiritual wisdom of all the world and of all time, in order to develop our own ideas, build our own faith, nurture our consciences, and set our moral compasses. ... Unitarianism is enough. ... So keep the faith. Keep fast to the heart of your Unitarian practice. For faith is something that sustains us. And it is something which, surely, we can never have enough."

Once that note had been struck, on the Saturday, it has continued to sound over and over again during this week. Enoughness is about knowing when you have enough and then being content, whether you are talking about food, or information, or entertainment or work. Enoughness is good. Except for those spiritual "never-enoughs" which John talked about, such as gratitude and commitment and love.

An Interval of Peace

Today has been my day of rest. Not my day "off", in which I struggle to catch up with domestic tasks, but a true day of rest. I have taken a deep breath, and once more stepped outside my own life to let my soul catch up.

And it has been so peaceful. It was a lovely morning, so I went for a slow, untimed run round the block, breathing in the green of springtime and marvelling at the efficiency of my legs and heart and lungs. Then I had a shower and breakfast, giving thanks for unlimited hot water, and good food.

Most of the morning was spent reading Wayne Muller's wonderful book Sabbath: Finding rest, renewal and delight in our busy lives, which I have blogged about before; writing a letter by hand; and helping my daughter to revise for her A2 History exam on Monday.

I have recently treated myself to a new cross-stitch kit, to keep my mind and hands occupied when I stop smoking at the end of today (hopefully for good this time!), so that I don't eat rather than smoke. This afternoon has been spent listening to Classic fm and sorting out all the threads and taking the first few tentative stitches.

There are many domestic jobs that need doing, but I am determinedly ignoring them, so that I can savour this interval of peace, before picking the threads of my life back up again this evening. As Wayne Muller writes, we all need a regular interval of rest in our lives, in which to pause and savour what we have, and to recharge our batteries - physical, mental and spiritual.

This interval of peace has been bliss!

"Comparisons are odorous"

Thus said Dogberry in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. It is something I need to remember more often than I do.

Today I went for a run, and was feeling really pleased - I did a shade under three miles in 31 minutes. I was just walking back up the hill to cool down, when I met my neighbour, Alan. Now Alan is a super-athlete - tall, slim, rangy, and has run sub-3 hour marathons and a couple of Ironmans for good measure. We got into conversation and he mentioned that he was in training for a 900-mile bike ride in July (London to Edinburgh and back), which would take a maximum of five days.

Oh.

I told him he was crazy, and wished him well. Then, as I plodded back up the hill, the thought crossed my mind: "Well, that put me in my place."

Then I thought: "Woah! Wait just a minute! You are Sue Woolley and have just run three miles in 31 minutes. That is something to celebrate. Comparing yourself to Alan is stupid and pointless. he is him, and you are you, and so you need to celebrate your own achievements and feel good about them."

Comparisons are odorous indeed.