Punctuating Our Days With HAPPY Hours July 31, 2012
Posted by nrhatch in Gratitude, Happiness, Life Balance, Mindfulness.trackback
Eeyore is prone to pessimism.
Instead of looking for “the good,” he scans the horizon for something that holds no appeal . . . and hangs onto it.
Tenaciously.
Devoting his focus and energy to things he dislikes causes him to miss out on any number of happy moments he otherwise might have enjoyed.
A.A. Milne’s Eeyore is not alone in his unhappy habit . . . I see Eeyores everywhere.
The world is filled with people who walk around with a perpetual sour look marring their countenance and obscuring their perspective. They are never at a loss for something to grumble about . . . or frown at with displeasure.
Do they find some obscure satisfaction from dissatisfaction? Or some comfort from residing in an uncomfortable, albeit familiar, state of mind?
Perhaps.
And, then, there’s Tigger . . . who bounces through life with a perpetual grin on his face.
The anti-thesis of Eeyore.
Eyes wide open to “the good,” Tigger finds joy and beauty in every nook and cranny of life. There is always something for Tigger to smile about as he moves through his days and nights.
Can we not claim the same?
Happiness is never in things . . . it is in us. Or it isn’t. It’s a choice we make moment by moment, hour by hour, and day by day.
If we want to emulate Tigger’s optimism and enthusiasm, we need only punctuate our days with HAPPY Hours.
Think of all the beauty still left around you and Be Happy. ~ Anne Frank
Ahh . . . that’s better!
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Artwork by Anne Abbgott ~ available at Island Gallery West.
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Spirit Lights The Way 
Try being married to one! OY! My husband is an Eeyore! He suffers from depression, but not chronic or clinical. He worries alot too. I think he wishes it was 1950 again. He’s very defiant about adapting to the millennium.
Some people are more of a challenge to be around . . . especially if we’re determine to remain positive rather than swirling around in the “sea of negativity” with them. 😉
Whatever good things happen to you, enjoy them while you’ve got them!
And when “bad things” happen . . . play the “it could be worse” game to cheer yourself up.
Happy hour adds a bit of delight to everything!
I find the best days are filled with “happy hours” from sunrise to sunset . . . looking for the good helps us to find the good.
Such good advice … so difficult to follow! I gotta do better …
Practice, practice, practice.
Then, if we are tempted to throw a pity party for ourselves, we more easily see a better way to expand our happiness.
Very good advice, I will take moment by moment!
That’s the ticket! We can only live “happily ever after” on a moment by moment basis. Be Here Now.
Hear, hear, Nancy. Small puddles of happiness which can become larger and meet other puddles. It’s what life is all about.
Puddles coalesce into Pools before running into the Sea of Positivity . . . a perfect place to be! 😀
We need to find inner peace to be happy. Once we are at peace with ourselves and accept who we are, happiness follows.
I’ve met plenty of Expat Eeyores in Portugal – I want to give them a slap! They have everything and yet nothing makes them happy.
That would make you “slap~happy,” eh? 😀
And I agree with you: Acceptance + Inner Peace => Happiness.
Hmmm lets see. It rained today! No thunder and no lightening!! Just rain, a gentle soft rain. That was good. Ok moving on. I am sleeping later and later because my husband’s work times have changed which means I stay up later and later, something I was trying to move the other way. Now I get to see lots of interesting things on TV that aren’t on during the day. BBC things that are so funny. Guess I will always be a night owl. A night owl who is working on being more positive.
As Mary Poppins would sing, “In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun.”
Our job is to find the fun and *snap* the job’s a game.
And, in the meantime, BBC shows ARE funny! 😀
Happiness is in us…love it!!!
Yay! That truism is an eye opening epiphany . . . once we stop looking OUT THERE for happiness, we find that it has been IN HERE all along. 😎
Eeyore and Tigger provide such helpful examples for us….what not to do and what to do. (btw, I recently gave away my Tigger stuffed animal to the most joyful girl I’ve ever taught, as I cleared out my classroom. And my very favorite student of all time…a 5th grader I worked with for 5 years…he chose… Eeyore!…he was an Eeyore for a few years, but really transformed into a cheerful, positive, optimistic kid … Tigger won!)
Yes. The value of much kiddie lit is the ability to see ourselves in the characters authors like A.A. Milne, P.L. Travers,,E.B. White, and J.K.Rowling have woven.
Interesting . . .
Note to self: Two initials & no first name = the key to success as a children’s book author.
we get to choose, that’s the beauty of it, choose whether to be Eeyore or Tigger. Of course, sometimes that makes it difficult to be patient with someone’s choice.
Yes . . . Eeyores and Tiggers find it difficult to be around each other at times. It’s tiring for both. 😆
yes it is, good point and important to remember.
Thanks for the reminder, Nancy. I find that recognizing that the ‘bad’ things are mirrors of the thing we need to change within us makes me feel that a day has been productive. This places a positive spin on the negative. Lovely metaphors.
Thanks, yaz! Often the easiest thing to change is our perspective.
i fall into thatmode sometimes. it really irritates me when i do
Same here, Sidey. But . . . I usually shake off the negativity pretty quickly because being an Eeyore is NOT how I want to spend my limited time here. 😀
yup, being happy to have the honey is a better way to be
This is true, Nancy. I have to limit my time around Eeyore people or I end up cranky and irritated (and this is really hard to do on days when I am an Eeyore person :)) Luckily, my ‘I hate everything’ days are few and far between.
Yes. My “I hate everything” days are limited to times when my sense of humor is M.I.A. . . . at those times, I feel like a P.O.W., caught in life’s vice.
Sometimes I’m an Eeyore 😦 and sometimes I’m a Tigger 🙂
I’m a Tigger 🙂 . . . who sometimes emulates Eeyore. 😦
Or maybe an Eeyore . . . who’s picked up some tips and techniques from Tigger.
It’s kind of like Shel Silverstein’s poem re Zebras . . . hard to tell if they are white with black stripes or black with white stripes.
Haha, yes 🙂