{"id":24350,"date":"2012-10-08T00:06:10","date_gmt":"2012-10-08T07:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/?p=24350"},"modified":"2012-10-08T00:06:10","modified_gmt":"2012-10-08T07:06:10","slug":"happiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/24350","title":{"rendered":"Happiness …"},"content":{"rendered":"

We all know happiness can’t be bought or sold. And we know we can’t expect anyone to create happiness for us, right? So if you can’t buy something to make you happy and you’re supposed to make yourself happy, how is that done exactly?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Last week I was at the park with my girls and\u00a0realized\u00a0I haven’t\u00a0swung on a swing myself since\u00a0I was … well, forever\u2014I can’t remember the last time. So I did. I could just about touch the tree branches with my toes, but each time I did, the swing would kind of free-fall for just a moment because I was swinging too high. And I\u00a0was\u00a0too heavy. Guess how I felt afterward?<\/p>\n

Happy. Ecstatic, elated, exhilarated … happy.<\/p>\n

Sometimes when I’m headed to one of our outbuilding offices at the farm (our computer guys work in the old auto machine\u00a0shop, our test kitchen is in the old bunkhouse, the library is in the barn, etc.), I randomly run. As in RUN!\u00a0Again, happy.<\/p>\n

Or when something kind of hilarious happens, my first impulse is to laugh “appropriately.” Not gonna do that anymore.<\/p>\n

Deepak Chopra says:<\/p>\n

“Be happy<\/em> for no reason, like a child. If you are happy<\/em> for a reason, you’re in trouble, because that reason can be taken from you.”<\/p>\n

In other words, I’m going to take the time to act like a child … for no apparent reason. I’m going to enjoy the littliest of things. After all, National Children’s Day is October 8, and I could use a little more happy in my life, not bought or borrowed. Next time I’m at the deli, I’m asking for the biggest pickle they have so I can laugh out loud with my kids\u00a0as its juices run down my<\/em> face.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We all know happiness can’t be bought or sold. And we know we can’t expect anyone to create happiness for us, right? So if you can’t buy something to make you happy and you’re supposed to make yourself happy, how … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[385,401,579],"class_list":["post-24350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gratitude","tag-gratitude-2","tag-happiness","tag-mia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raisingjane.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}