When am I most happy? It’s usually when I’m not thinking at all. It’s when I’m caught up in the flow, whether it’s working, reading, watching the sunrise, or sharing space with the pigeons. I’ve spent many years of my life sitting in the dark places of my mind. Those years were about healing what’s been broken and being there for the hurt parts of me. But one of the most healing aspects of life is taking those hurts and dark memories and giving them some fresh air. Fresh air means giving them space and reminding myself that I am just a tiny speck, like a grain of sand, that lasts for just the moment I am currently in. But I get to experience that moment and that in itself is eternity. Every moment can be reduced, or expanded, to infinity; limited only by our ability to observe the moment.

Time spent thinking about whether I am happy is useful for evaluating decisions and defining solutions to parts of my life that need repair, or maintenance. Otherwise thinking about whether I am happy tends to have the effect of decreasing my happiness. I am happiest when I am not centered on me, but instead when I get to become, for just a moment, part of something bigger. There is a subterranean flow of joy in life. At times we can find it and ride along with it for a little while. It’s always there. It’s the soft silence of a morning cloaked in snow where it feels like the world itself has stopped to share the moment. It’s the sure power behind the steady rolling of the surf saying that eternity is real and we’re eternal too because of a moment. It’s the background chorus of a gentle rain speaking of rest and growth. It’s the wind’s feathers brushing against the eaves reminding us that everything knows the wind. It’s the staccato notes emphasizing the ebb and flow of hammer and hands shaping metal. It’s in the rumbling swoosh of tires reading the braille that the construction crews left when they built the highway. And it’s in the dance, when the dancer finally knows the steps and moves with little thought to become the music’s friend and coconspirator.

But there are always moments in time that hang on, like they’re medals on our jackets. That moment when the plane was dropping into a noseover dive and the pencil floated in the cockpit air in front of me. That happy memory is a keeper. Or the memory of the hot shower after my first backpacking trip. That memory, now 50 years old, is something I look forward to recreating after every time I involve myself in some various form of muckery.

Happy moments can inform us. They can guide us to the ways we can create new happy moments. But they’re moments and if I want to be generally happy then the pursuit of happiness has to be left behind. Happiness is one of those coy characters in life. The more you pursue it, the faster it runs away. I find have to let happiness sneak up and surprise me. It always will because it’s there just underneath the surface waiting for me to shut my mind , and ego, off long enough to recognize it.