Responsibility and Happiness: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

Lately I have been trying to trick myself into doing “the right thing” by reframing the issue I'm balking at. Instead of “I should ride my bike to the store to save gas,” I’ve tried “I’m going to hop on my bike and enjoy the beautiful weather on the way to the store!”  Instead of “I’ve got to take two hours out of my day to cook all these vegetables,” I think, “I’m going to make something beautiful and healthy for my family tonight!” and instead of “Ugh, I’ve got to haul all these clothes out to the line so I don’t contribute to global warming” (or add to the general warming of my household – it’s 95 freaking degrees today), I go with “How quickly the sun dries all these clothes in this heat!”  The exclamation points are important.  Sometimes it works.

Reframing is a good motivator, and it’s no lie that all these things have a very positive reason for doing them as well as positive outcomes.  It helps me get going, and keep going.

Right as I was beginning to think about this, I read this post from Chile Chews – Change the Focus - which got some interesting comments.  A lot of people seem to be struggling with how to motivate themselves to stay the course and wondering if being more "positive" might help. I like the idea; I do.  And like I said it’s not so much a mind over matter thing as being able to see both sides – the negative and the positive.  But the fact is some days I am just too tired or cranky to happily do anything more than I have to.  And when I just can’t make myself happy, no matter how many exclamation points I try, I think of Wendell Berry. 

Berry is a sweet man (I met him!! And, oh, I could live on the happiness of that event for a looong time), and a person who delights in doing things the “hard way.”  His poetry and fiction entice us to delight with him, to see the world with love and gratitude, as well as clear-sighted honesty.  But he is also a moralist, and this attracts me too.  Here’s an excerpt from The Unsettling off America, a prophetic book written over 25 years ago that he says he wishes didn’t foretell the future of corporate agriculture and loss of the local as well as it did:

"One possibility is just to tag along with the fanatisists in government and industry who would have us believe that we can pursue our ideals of affluence, comfort, mobility, and leisure indefinitely.  This curious faith is predicated on the notion that we will soon develop unlimited new sources of energy: domestic oil fields, shale oil, gasified coal, nuclear power, solar energy, and so on.  This is fantastical because the basic cause of the energy crisis is not scarcity; it is moral ignorance and weakness of character."

“Moral ignorance and weakness of character” – nothing snappy happy about that.  Just the facts. Sometimes it’s hard and we make ourselves do it anyway because it’s the right thing to do.  And that’s part of it, too. The beautiful thing is, almost every single time I do, it makes me feel better.  And when I screw up, I try to think of this handy quote from another poetic fellow who was ahead of his time:

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

So we just keep going, unflummoxed by our past foibles, day to day . We can do it. (!)

Comments

[Chile]

Meeting Berry must have been a definite highlight! Wow.

Here's to riding our bikes just because it's fun!