Happiness is inward, and not outward; and so, it does not depend on what we have, but on what we are. ~ Henry Van Dyke

Three Questions, December 12, 2024

You can find the background to The Three Questions in my recent post about it. I’ll be answering the questions each day for the next year and putting this experience into a book. Here we go!

What was the most beautiful thing I encountered today?

I was picking up dinner, I decided to be lazy tonight. As I was walking by a cafe, there were three little girls, they looked to be between four and six years old. They had taken over an entire booth in the cafe with their dolls and their many, many little accessories and they were having a blast.

What did I learn today?

I learned at their graduation that one of my Esthetic Program students had been awarded her state license today. That means that on the same day she graduated, she also became licensed, that’s so amazing. It means she was incredibly organized about taking her exam and immediately passed. This student did a full program and got licensed in 10 months with no student debt. This is what we’re about in career education at the community college.

What made me happy today?

This is a very peculiar thing to me I think. I believe a lot of people have the same things with nuns in full penguin garb, but my aunt’s a nun so I’ve seen nuns in fall gear doing all manner of things. But there is something completely hilarious to me about seeing Buddhist monks doing ordinary modern things. A monk on a cell phone cracks me up. I don’t mean it to be disrespectful. My brother and several friends are Buddhist, I respect that believe system and philosophy of life.

Today I saw a monk squashing boxes while doing his recycling and it made me laugh and smile.