Happiness... What It is.

Much has been written about happiness. And everyone has a different definition of it. Mine includes outdoor activity, like hiking.

I plan several outdoor activities a year that keep me happy. Some are with others, and some are by myself. And it's all with variety and balance, from backpacking to just having lunch outside in a restaurant patio. No, I don't care if it's raining or sunny, hot or cold.

Happiness is having a fervor. And being able to scratch that itch.


-copyright 2014 by Willy

P.S., the ability to scratch an itch, not scratching every itch.

Happiness... On Relationships

My thinking on relationships... if you want to be with the one that makes you laugh, then you'd better find the levity to make yourself laugh first.

And/or just accept yourself and embrace the simple solitude. If so, then there's nobody to have to compromise with, nobody to distract me from Mother Nature, nobody to take away time with which to meditate... and nobody to ruin a beautiful sunset. That congruence, or lack of it, strikes me as funny.

My daughter pointed out to me that I have these cycles where for five or ten years I behave like a monk, then date somebody and get disgusted, returning to behaving like a monk for five or ten years.

I plan to add some damping to that cycle.

I plan to be happy.


-copyright 2014 by Willy

Blessed

There's a preacher out there that incessantly talks about what to do and how to behave in order to get God's blessings. He talks about blessings as though they were a unit of currency. It's amazing that somebody buys this hype. He's done very well, but he's just another silver-tongued devil. But I digress again.

Blessings are not complicated things.

I believe in happiness through kindness, service and sacrifice. And I believe in karma. Thus I believe that blessings come. And they come every which way.

I was climbing a steep and tall mountain a few weeks ago. I should have been up and back down by noon due to the possibility of lightning. I embraced the burn but was nevertheless climbing rather slowly. I started at sunup but there was just no way to meet the timetable. I saw the storms coming right at me and should have aborted but decided instead to continue. The storms went around the mountain and sleeted heavy below. I only got wet in the last ten minutes of my ten-hour hike.

Am I blessed?

I'm very good at science, math... and statistics. When a statistical improbability rears up, I take notice. And there's been quite a few of these. Not 100-year floods every year but 100-year blessings many times a year.

I believe, but not in TV preachers.


-copyright 2014 by Willy.

P.S., lightning kills many hikers above treeline.

Something Special and Motivational

The above picture is the GPS screen reading of my hiking GPS at the top of Mount Shivano near Salidas, Colorado, a few weeks ago. Note its elevation reading is 14,233 feet.

Shivano is a class-2 fourteener, and I hiked a mile up in five miles forward, in thin air. This one took me six hours to climb where my other successful fourteener, a class-1, took me four hours, so either my training is lacking or I've got to shed some pounds, or both. That gives me a goal for the next year... to train extra hard at my home elevation of 1,000 feet.

Besides backpacking, I'm now "peak-bagging." Colorado has 52 mountains that are 14,000 feet high or higher. I have accomplished two in five attempts. The unsuccessful attempts were either storm problems and/or not starting early enough and not having enough time (Grey's), or being pooped out (Long's and Pike's). No, I do not get sick at this altitude but I do walk slower and pant more.

I have to do Something Special and Motivational a few times a year. We all do.


-copyright 2014 by Willy.