Unless you’ve been living under a rock somewhere, you’ve probably noticed there’s a lot of what could politely be termed “bad stuff” going on right now in the world. And of course, like everyone else, I’m thinking about it. So it would seem a bit trite or inappropriate to post the draft I’ve been working on (but you’ll get it eventually) just now.
Still, I’m not planning to post about all the horrible things going on in the world, present post excluded, because there are plenty of people writing and talking and tweeting and posting about these things already. Like you need me chiming in. Honestly, who cares what I think about it? I pretty much think what you think, no doubt.
Horrific and appalling things are happening all the time. I know this. Despite the fact that I try to keep my news ingestion to a minimum, I am well aware of this sad fact. And it’s not as if I don’t care about all these things. On the contrary. Would I have created a blog all about happiness and all sorts of ways to find it, if I felt the world was just swell as is? No. No, I would not.
It’s not about ignorance or denial. It’s simply that this blog has a particular purpose. And that purpose and hope is to shine a little light, maybe a tiny one, but a light nonetheless. Maybe something meaningful, maybe something just to make you smile. There are other places you can find out about all the news, good and bad. And other ways to show your support for people who are hurting, or to band together to try to fix things that need fixing. Those are all worthy goals, they’re just not the goal here.
I realize that some days, it’s hard to find the happiness, even a stinkin’ smidge of it. But as Mr. Rogers said, even in the midst of tragedy there are heroes. There is decency, there is kindness, there is courage and there is goodness. All over the place, in big and small doses. Sometimes we need a little reminder of this, so we can keep on doing what we’re put on this earth to do. No one is perfect, but you’d be surprised at the number of heroes out there, if you look around.
If we allow our knowledge of all the horrible things going on at any given time to undermine us, paralyze us, depress us, and/or make us feel hopeless, the bad guys win. We can’t have that. Not for long, anyway. George Takei said it better than I ever could, in his blog post about the tragedy at Boston Marathon; maybe you will like it too. You can find it here.
Me, I’m keeping on. I’m cooking dinner for the offspring and doing laundry and kissing them on the head at random intervals (which makes them laugh and/or look at me like I’m a mouth-breeding frog). I’m finishing this post and helping the Curious One train our geriatric cat (more on that later). In short, I’m doing the mom thing. Because that’s what I’m here to do. It’s my most important job, ever.
And when it’s time, the next post will be ready. And I’m pretty sure it will involve bacon.
Smidge of Happiness 