28 Things That Make Me Happy

“Happy premise #3: Even though I feel like I might ignite, I probably won’t.” – Bowfinger

Why can’t you make coffee happy?  It’s always bitter.

What makes me happy?  Oh, sure, like everyone else I love it when Joe Biden falls off a bicycle and want to start a GoFundMe® to buy him a 350 horsepower motorcycle.  But beyond that motorcycle, what really makes me happy?

A lot of things.  So, the following are a few of them, in an absolutely random order:

  1. Helping people see what they otherwise would not have seen. That’s why I write.
  2. Writing.
  3. Helping people laugh. I stood up in front of several hundred adults when I was in third grade and did a standup routine.    It was awful.  Why do third graders not do standup?  Their material is awful.  I have been writing humor since about that time.
  4. A good cigar. I smoke them rarely enough that my insurance company calls me a non-smoker.  But sitting down in the hot tub with one and staring out at the peaceful night sky in Modern Mayberry as the coyotes creep out of their dens to howl at sunset?
  5. A good book. I’ve read several this year, and was planning on doing a post about those.  Regardless, a book is transformative.  I like mine in paper – something about the tactile feel of the book is hypnotic.  E-books are convenient, but are less immersive.
  6. A bad book. I generally learn something even from those.

I once mixed a snake with a fruit.  I called it a bananaconda.

  1. Cool days. I am really not a fan of summer except at elevations above a mile and a half or latitudes near that of Fairbanks.  Winter?  Never seen one too cold.
  2. The smooth taste of a cup of coffee in the morning makes me hate waking up a bit less.  Don’t get me wrong, I know that I have to get up, and to move from comfort to discomfort if I want to accomplish anything.  Coffee is our bitter friend that makes being awake work for me.
  3. Making the world better in big ways. If I can make the world a little bit better for thousands of people I don’t know, awesome.  I’ve been lucky enough to do that a time or two.
  4. Making the world better in small ways. I tip well and don’t complain (much) when I go out to eat.  Waitresses, even crappy ones, work hard so I don’t want to make their lives harder when for a couple of bucks I can make it better.

Chuck Norris and Superman® wrestled once.  Loser had to wear his underwear on the outside of his clothes for the rest of his life.

  1. Being with my family. Good heavens, I love those dunderheads.  The thing that family provides is, perhaps, the only lasting legacy that I’ll leave.
  2. I had a friend once who is an Orthodox Priest (I seem to attract priests and clergy – I have no idea why) and he asked me a simple, but profound question, “If you love learning, is that a good thing?”  Great question!  My only answer that I’ve come up with so far is that to know Truth takes us closer to knowing God.  To know what is False tells us what is not God.  Still a great question, and I can see the idea that learning can sometimes be a distraction that takes us away from Truth.
  3. Making liars uncomfortable. I have no idea why, but I cannot abide by those that aren’t faithful, and those that lie (there’s a difference).  I’ve heard it said that we all lie, and I must admit that in my youth I told a few.  I’ve since learned that I cannot escape the Truth so I try to be as faithful to Truth as much as I can be.  Has telling the Truth cost me when a lie would never have been caught?    Was it worth it?  Yes.  My honor is clean.  It’s not my job to judge, but when I can make them feel pain?  I love it.
  4. Good music. What do I like about music?  I like optimistic music, music that looks to a future that, while it might mean there’s a fight, means that there is hope.  Rock and roll used to be that music before it got whiney.
  5. A good mystery. I love being able to take clues and figure out the real answer.  Sometimes it works.  Sometimes it doesn’t.

In the 1970s, Led Zep™ went on vacation, so Pink Floyd® tended their gardens.  So, Roger Waters Robert’s Plants?

  1. Knowing that the main limitation to what I do in the world is me. I am lucky enough to be able to choose what (mostly) I want to do.  Because of that, my choices define my destiny.  Not Destiny, that’s a stripper that works down in McMaynerbury.
  2. Camping is a way to get away from the things that make us comfortable.  Huh?  I thought comfortable was happy?  No. Comfortable is comfortable.  When camping away from all of the things that mask us from the realities of the basic functions of life it leads me to focus on them, and understand that life in a cold tent in the rain after eating food that was poorly cooked is . . . still pretty good.  Comfort isn’t happiness.
  3. Knowing that there is much more on Heaven and Earth than is dreamt of in my philosophy. I believe, as the man said to those dudes in Corinth, we “see through a glass, darkly.”  I know that there is imperfection in what I know, and what I understand.  I also know that, (at least) as long as I’m alive, I’ll never understand it all.  How cool is that!?!?  We live in a time and place where we’ll never have all the answers.  The game is afoot.
  4. Being on time. I hate being late – I think it shows disrespect to those that you’re meeting.  When I’m on time, and not rushed?  It’s wonderful.  So, I try to do that because it makes me happy.
  5. Sleeping in. I love to sleep in.  It’s awesome.  What makes it awesome?  Getting up early.  I hate that – that’s why getting up early is awesome.

Fush u mang?

  1. Knowing that I have to do things that are uncomfortable to grow. Getting up early is one.  So, doing things I don’t like, things that are uncomfortable make me happy because I know that’s a chance to grow.
  2. Knowing that the most important thing I’ll ever do is probably in front of me.
  3. Or not.
  4. Fixing something. When something is broken it actively makes me unhappy every time I see it or have to deal with it.  Weirdly, I get an outsized amount of happiness in dealing with the things that I fixed or made better.
  5. Starting something. Every start is a new journey.  What an adventure!

After reading the dictionary, every other book is just a remix.

  1. Finishing something. Every completion is something in the past, something that I’ve done to my standard.  What’s next?
  2. Doing something pure. I used to make models, and sometimes I’d look at the unpainted model and love the purity of the completed plane or tank or starship.  I almost hated to paint it.  And then when the painting was done?  Also awesome.  But building something new and perfect is a thumb in the eye of entropy.
  3. Watching my children achieve. Like I said above, my children are perhaps my only legacy.  In three generations, most memories of me will likely be gone, so I’ll live on in the world only in the legacy of my children.  And maybe that makes me happiest.

Now about that motorcycle.  A Harley® or a Ninja™?

Author: John

Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.

30 thoughts on “28 Things That Make Me Happy”

    1. Somebody please give that senile old f**k the keys to a sport bike.

  3. 29. Bird watching. We have front & back yard feeders suspended 8′ above ground to keep Bambi from eating. Painted Buntings, Carolina Chickadees, cardinals and an occaisional Red-bellied woodpecker (sadly, he doesn’t go “ha-ha-ha-HA-haaaaa”), plus Carolina Wrens & Mounrning Doves (both are ground feeders). And hummingbirds to two feeders. Overlooking a salt marsh. Succulent.

    OMG, I’m turning into Miss Hathaway. And visualizing Jethro in khaki shorts. EEK!!!!

  4. doing things I don’t like, things that are uncomfortable make me happy

    Explains why I hit myself on the noggin with a ball peen hammer every chance I get. It just feels so good when I stop.

    Re: the cold. I used to loathe winter with a seething passion through a lifetime of living in the northeast, literally writing off three whole months of the year to merely enduring. Since relocating to South Texas, I’ve grown rather nostalgic for Old Man Winter and kind of miss his savage bite. We rolled the dice and gambled away three months huddled indoors against the cold for six months hiding indoors dodging the heat.

  5. Yes most current US music isn’t worth bothering with. Here’s a suggestion for a genre of European music, symphonic metal. The metal is of various flavors and the symphonic part is the female lead singer who are often classically trained. Number 0ne would be Nightwish, a Finnish band that has a Dutch singer, with several different singers they have been around for 26 years, the band is superb and actually are excellent live. All of the music mentioned is on YouTube. The place to start is their Wakken concert in 2013.
    Other bands of the same genre and time in service are, Epica, Within Temptation, Therion, and many others.

      1. Oh yeah, there’s lots for good bands, it is a deep rabbit hole to fall down.

      1. Name an album of theirs that isn’t. More importantly this is the best live band I’ve ever heard, their concerts sound like carefully produced albums.

  6. After reading that delusional detached from reality comrade commissar Pompeo speech, enjoy them all while you still can.
    Read the DIY bunker article for less than $1000 after that.
    The Fukuyama vs Rove nomenklatura apparatchiks make Dr Strangelove seem reasonable as they are almost Operation Barbarossa bat guano crazy.
    I’m loving the guidestones go bye bye and the Dutch farmers running off the agents of the state and the rain after a month of none along with a good walkabout while the coffee marinates for something to enjoy on the return trip.

    1. If we’re invoking Dr Strangelove, it’s Colonel Batguano.

  7. What is most amazing is that the stuff that makes us happy is so often cheap and simple. The simple stuff makes me happy.

    1. Indeed. I refer to my bride as ‘cheap date’ when she gets giddy over some simple thing. As a perfect example, I bought a 3rd rack for our GE built-in oven a couple of weeks ago, and she is so thrilled to be able to juggle three racks of ribs at a time, or bake multiple trays of chicken parm simultaneously that she has to show off her new acquisition to everyone who crosses our threshold. It’s a little embarrassing, really. (“You gave your wife an offset spatula for your 30th anniversary??? You romantic devil, you.”)

      This is why I married this woman a thousand years ago. She doesn’t need or want diamonds and furs. Just give her kitchen contentment and she will even shut up (briefly) about my power tool obsession. Simple is good.

    2. The simple things are best, as we learned from the Joker in “The Dark Knight”:
      ————————————————-
      The Joker: You see, I’m a guy of simple taste. I enjoy dynamite, and gunpowder, and gasoline!

      [he pours gasoline on the mountain of cash]

      The Chechen: [panicked] What the…?

      The Joker: Ah-ta-ta-ta-ta. And you know the thing they have in common? They’re cheap.
      ————————————————-
      Well…the third one isn’t so cheap anymore, but a pound of gunpowder buys me a lot of range time!

      BTW, let us know where we can contribute to Biden’s motorcycle fund! 🙂

    3. Excellent point – buying stuff is (generally) only a substitute for being happy. Unless it’s beer or steak.

  10. #19 I also hate being late. My motto is “I’d rather be thirty minutes early than five minutes late.”

    Many times, that has got me into appointments early, often getting done before the original start time.

    My wife knows how long it’s supposed to take to get somewhere and will wait until the last minute to leave. Irks the hell out of me because invariably, we hit every doggone traffic light and end up being a few minutes late.

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