I once walked up to one of my favorite ladies and asked her how she was.
“Can’t complain,” she replied.
Why not? Complaining is fun.
Eric Wiener complains in a most entertaining way in his book, The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places on Earth.
How did Wiener know where the happy was? Well, people do studies on this. And some countries have ministries of happiness, as if it can be dispensed like postage stamps.
But anyway, about complaining.
One of Weiner’s destinations was Iceland:
“Iceland? As in land of ice? As in cold and dark and teetering on the edge of the map as it if might fall off at any moment? Yes, that Iceland.”
It’s reputed to be one of the happiest places on earth.
“Flying from Florida to Iceland in the dead of winter is at best counterintuitive and at worst sheer lunacy. My body sensed this before the rest of me. It knew something was wrong, . . . And expressed its displeasure by twitching and flatulating more than usual.”
And, when Wiener enrolls in a weekend meditation retreat in India:
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Just wait until he hears the rules that he must obey all weekend long. Happiness lies behind a few tollgates.
Up until he wrote his book, Wiener’s idea of happiness fixated on palm trees and swim-up bars. His research forced him to expand his definition a little, to pay attention to what the experts say. After all, neuroscientists know “how our brains work: by doing strange and often sadistic things to rats.”
So off he goes to Iceland and India and Qatar and Bhutan.
He may or he may not pin down the secret. “’You are addicted to sadness,’” says a woman he meets on his quest.
Yeah, well. Happiness can kill, Wiener warns us, citing a news story about a prisoner who, upon news that he would be released, “his pulses stopped due to over-excitement.”
While you wait to get your hands on Wiener’s book, you may want to sit through this 15-minute video on finding happiness.
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Or you can find happiness like I do and make dessert. Do you think Salted Nut Candy Bars might improve the quality of your life?
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