Day 295 Happiness



September 30, 2015

(If we live with an open and grateful attitude, every day will bring a gift. This is one of 365 gifts during the year I turned 70.)

About 15 years ago, American and Japanese students participated in a project: What makes me happy. It was one component of my doctoral project. Every once in a while, I answer this question for myself too. Ten things I need in my life for happiness:

1.      CREATIVITY:  I have opportunities for this through writing and photography/designing.

2.      LOVE:  I need to love and be loved. I need the spiritual love of one person reaching and connecting with another as well as the emotional love that allows me to make myself vulnerable in a relationship. I also need to touch and be touched physically and to make love emotionally and physically.

3.      ADVENTURE:  I need adventure in my life—adventure of discovering new places and people through traveling. I need to have some of my life punctured by the unexpected. And I need the adventure of new ideas and imagination.

4.      SOLITUDE:  I need time and space to be with and by myself to write, think, dream, fantasize, read, walk and meander. I need to vegetate and have down time during this solitude because that is when the mind makes connections that normally wouldn’t be made.

5.      CONNECTIONS:  I need to connect with nature, people and my spiritual self: nature through the use of my senses, people through sharing myself, and spirit through opening my soul.

6.      LEARNING: I need to learn through study, both formal and informal, meeting people and exploring on my own (such as on the computer or reading).

7.      HEALTH: I need reasonable health in order to have a balance in my life to pursue all of the above-mentioned things. (Of course, this is likely to change…)

8.      ORDER/BALANCE:  I need stability in finances and relationships and in the choices I make.

9.      SELF-ESTEEM: Self-esteem lays the building blocks for future accomplishments. I need success in my activities, career, relationships, etc., in order for me to continue to reach high.

10.   INDEPENDENCE/A DEGREE OF AUTONOMY:  Although my connections with people are very important, I must also be totally myself. After all, although there are people along the way, ultimately we enter and leave this world alone. . 

My gift today is another day to be happy.
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Day 296: ROYGBIV

You can find links to my other posts on this project here:


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