Are You Choosing or
Chasing Happiness
This morning
I woke up 4 hours later than I normally do. It was obvious to me that my mind and
body needed more rest, so they lulled me off into a coma-like state and gave me
a gentle nudge at 7 instead of 3.
Normally
when I get up, I read and meditate and then around 6:00, I make my bed say a
prayer and then get to writing. I do not pass go, nor do I collect the 200
bucks, I get right to it.
This morning
however, even though I had overslept by 4 hours, I stopped long enough to take a quick glance
at my email. When I did I found the following note, meant to be a comment for
the blog post from yesterday:
On Thursday evening, after hearing you speak at the NG Women's
Conference, I headed to the airport to get a rental car and then drive to
Virginia to visit friends. I was exhausted and the wait at the rental car
counter seemed endless. As I spoke to the gentleman next to me and complained
about the wait, I glanced toward the rear of the line and saw a man with no
arms and only a small deformed hand off his left shoulder. I watched as he took
off his shoes and one of his socks and with his foot removed his wallet from
the canvas satchel he had on a small cart that he pushed with his feet. With
his right foot, he opened the wallet, removed various cards and then knelt on
the ground to lift them to his deformed hand and dropped them in his left
breast pocket. At that moment I realized how fortunate I am. I have arms and
what took that man 5 minutes to do, I did in seconds. Your lecture sprang to my
mind, that I could choose to be happy. I plan to keep a daily reminder of that
man. Thank you. Without your lecture, I'm not sure that man's struggle would
have had such a profound effect on my life.
Carrie Luecke
Carrie Luecke
I read this and was moved
to tears. I had spoken to a group of women in leadership at Northrup Grumman, they
were all brilliant and all beautiful. I spoke about choosing to be happy, as
happy people really do get things done.
In her note Carrie
illustrated the lesson of time; that life is long, we make it quick with our
anger and frustration. Carrie also illustrated something that I did not teach;
that happiness enables us to truly see.
You can either chase
happiness in the form of image, money and status or you can be
happy with self- improvement, loving relationships and a sense of community and
community involvement---and keep in mind the greater the definition of
community; the greater the happiness (no I don’t have research to back that last thing up,
I just know that it’s true.)
We don’t have to see
someone with less to be more, but the moment opened Carrie to see what she
would not have seen before. We get caught up in what is not happening and fail
to see what is truly happening.
Life gives us the
opportunity to choose and it loves us so much that when we get things wrong, we
get to choose again.
I am grateful Carrie and to
all of you who choose to read, grow and become. We are making our world a
better place.
Be you, be well, be happy.
Bertice Berry, PhD.
Dr. Berry - I am so honored that you used my comment in your blog post. After you left the conference, the room continued to buzz from your lecture. I heard your name on many lips as we talked about what you had said and wiped the tears from our eyes. My challenge now is to keep the momentum. It's so easy to leave an event like the conference, go home and become complacent. The gentleman I wrote of will help me keep that momentum, but so will your words, both here and from your lecture. I hope I have the good fortune to hear you speak again (and bring my many girlfriends to hear you!).
ReplyDeleteThank you-
Carrie Luecke