Be happy and everything will feel perfect

“That’s life (that’s life), that’s what all the people say
You’re ridin’ high in April, shot down in May
But I know I’m gonna change that tune
When I’m back on top, back on top in June”

— Frank Sinatra —

Okay, Frank. Slow your roll bro. You’re definitely right about May when we got shot down hard (not that we were really flying high in April) but back on top in June, well, that remains to be seen. Jury’s out. Will we end up back on top? Probably not. But will we be beginning our very slow crawl toward the middle? Probably. And that’s a hell of a long way from where we have been. A long, slow crawl to the middle is bringing us no end of joy and that’s just one of the reasons we are living in such a, terrible, yes, but also endlessly interesting time. Typically we are striving, pushing, gearing up for the next big adventure or the next big event waiting until we get there to feel on top and fully in the race. Now though we’ve been grounded. Our big events are grocery days and deliveries of the occasional special treat. Arriving at the middle would, typically, be viewed as a failure, now the middle is considered not just a win, but, a perfectly fine place to be; great even. The other day, I had flowers planted in the boxes on my patio and some fresh ones in the house and it might as well have been Christmas and my birthday and any other number of remarkable days in my life I was so delighted.

I noticed so acutely that day that I was not happy because things were perfect, I was happy that things just were. That they were exactly as they were and I was exactly as I am. The sun was shining, I was breathing fresh air. I was alive in this very strange and very dark time and, yet, I was totally content to be so. It struck me so profoundly that I didn’t have to wait for everything to be perfect to be happy. Instead, I could just be happy and while exactly nothing was actually perfect, it could still feel like it is. This wasn’t some type of delusion or magic thinking as I am very well-aware of the shit hole we find ourselves in, but, I could still be happy, even within a shit hole and this felt to me like a very big deal.

I remember reading a story once about a woman planning for her wedding and she didn’t have a dress and there was some strife in her family, basically, the usual wedding drama. Anyway, this woman and her fiancé made a commitment to not wait until everything was perfect in order to be happy. They decided they were going to be happy and then everything would feel perfect, even though it may not have been. We are now faced with the same exact choice. We can choose to be happy so that the imperfect may still feel perfect. While we have been shot down, lying wounded and all, we have had time to think not only about what we want our new normal to look like but also to recalibrate where the goal post for normal is and how we want to feel about it. Normal is no longer way-out-in-left-field-go-where-you-want-whenever-you-want normal and, even though it feels that way sometimes, it is not the age of austerity either. Our normal, and the ways in which we may feel happy, content, fulfilled even, are moving somewhere toward the middle. Toward a nice, even-keeled and balanced place and that’s where they always should be.

“I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king
I’ve been up and down and over and out and I know one thing
Each time I find myself flat on my face
I pick myself up and get back in the race”

— Frank Sinatra —

Pre-coronavirus, at least to some extent, we felt like pirates able to plunder and take what we want. Kings or Queens ready to heel the world, get whatever we want with a snap of our fingers, delivered right to our feet. Now we find ourselves more in the positions of puppets, paupers and pawns of fate and a seemingly ever dwindling fortune and, yet, many of us feel happy, content even. A feeling which I consider to be next level happiness as it tends to be more enduring and stable; less fluctuating and changeable than happiness. But why? Particularly when it feels like there is so little to be happy about? Well, I don’t know but it seems to me that it is because many of us have made the decision to be happy even in the absence of perfection which, while great, is also a tremendous oversimplification. It is oversimplified because we know that rates of anxiety, depression, suicide, addictions and domestic violence are all on the rise. A sure sign that not everyone can simply snap their fingers, be happy and have everything feel perfect. Those are tools that not everyone has in their toolbox and that needs to be acknowledged.

What also needs to be acknowledged though is that there are those of us who do have those tools in our toolbox. The ability to decide we will be happy even in the face of these terrible and frightening times. We need to hold space for the people who can’t get there and for ourselves, who may not get there every day either, and, that’s okay too. It’s all okay. Even Frank goes on in the song to croon that he is considering rolling up in a ball to die should nothing be shaking come this July. We won’t have anything shaking come this July, or, at the very least, not much of anything and it doesn’t mean there can’t be days where we want to roll up in a ball a-and just die. Just like Frank. But, hopefully, we can have more days than not where we remember that if we can, with just a little bit of work and effort on our parts; not strain, force, pressure or fakeness, but, with some tender effort, remember to feel even a glint of happiness then our newfound form of perfect is surely to follow.