Happiness is......

May 18/2015

Today's song is "Summer Dress" by July Talk

Yesterday my son had a soccer game with his new competitive team and I went and did the first of what will be many dad moments and watched him play not as his coach but as his dad and it was kind of cool. I forgot just how amazing he is on the pitch with a soccer ball at his foot and some fierce determination to impose his will on his opponent, something he shares in common with his equally amazing sister.

As well as playing for his own team he was asked to spare for the other U16 competitive team in the game right after his and while that team didn't play nearly as well as his own, he did manage a couple of great scoring opportunities while playing his more natural striker position.

I didn't get much of chance to talk with him post games as it is weekend with his mom and he was dead exhausted given how much time he'd been on the pitch so I gave him a fist bump and wished him a great week and told him I'd see him on Friday.

When I got home he sent me a text telling me he thought he played like crap with some weak defence and a couple of missed scoring chances. I thought about his message and instead of texting back I called to talk about it with him directly as I don't like when he gets down on himself as he as a very bad habit of being harder on himself than he deserves as well as feeling like he has let people down, pretty huge weights for anyone to carry let alone a sixteen year old.

We talked for about 15 minutes and I think he got the message I was trying to send, reminding him that it was only his teams second exhibition game and with the limited practices they've had due to some serious attendance issues not nearly as bad as he thought. He paused at the end and thanked me for my words and said he could always count on me to tell it like it is, which made me smile as the one thing I've never done is feed either of my children false praise.

About an hour after we hung up he sent me a text apologizing for not asking me how I was doing as he knows it's been kind of rough on me the last few weeks with the whole job and relationship losses still kind of fresh and raw. I responded that I was doing ok and that I appreciated him asking but that it wasn't his job to look after me but my job to look after him. His next text said he just wanted me to be happy and I assured him I was.

That got me thinking about happiness and it dawned on me that a lot of people view it as a destination and think it is something to strive for much like planning for a new car or vacation next year, but I think it is much more nebulous than that, more a state of mind feeling than a destination.

I think we experience various states of mind and happiness is but one of many, like sadness, euphoria, lust, anger, and boredom. Each of them serves a purpose in our lives and it is perfectly fine to feel each of them at various points in our lives, denying them is like saying the sun will rise in the West and set in the East, just not going to happen anytime soon.

So while I'm not happy at the moment I know there will come a time when I'll feel that way again, in the meantime I'll keep doing what I'm doing to keep my mind occupied while doing the whole job search thing and not let things get me down too much.

So be happy, be sad, be angry, be excited, but just keep on being...........