Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. ~ Mahatma Ghandi

The Basics Bring Back Happiness

I’ve said it dozens of times on this blog, and I make no claims that I came up with it. It’s very old Taoist philosophy, to be happy you must secure the basics first.

Eat right

Get enough sleep

Drink enough water

Exercise

Get sunshine

Make sure you are safe

The last four months since I returned to work, still recovering from open heart surgery have been some of the hardest months of my adult life. I’ve been over all of it on the blog over the last few months, so I won’t go over it again. It’s taken a toll on both my physical and mental health. The two are of course interconnected. When my mental state goes to shit I find comfort in foods I shouldn’t eat, mostly carbs and cokes and that leads to bad blood sugar numbers. I’ll get my test results Monday and expect shortly after a call from my doctor that will not find her very happy. The good thing about me, is no matter how bad things get, I at least continue to exercise.

So, one of the benefits of writing this blog for so long is the obligation of being the Minister of Happiness. It forces me to have to walk the walk, no matter how bad I feel. So over the last few weeks I’ve really been trying hard to work on the basics. My eating has gotten better, I’ve been getting back to more regularly using my CPAP and giving myself enough hours of sleep, water is never an issue for me, neither is exercise but I’m being more consistent and regular, I’m working hard to make sure to get out into the sun for at least a half hour each day. Safety, usually an easy one is a little harder to come by right now in this insane country.

The good news is it has worked. Honestly, three weeks ago it was an absolute effort to even get out of bed, especially because it just meant going to work and dealing with shit every day. The worst thing, was this absolute constant feeling of numbness, nothing felt good. Not even a great slice of pizza and a coke. The world was absolutely dull in every way and felt like nothing more than a string of obligation, failure and disaster one after another, again and again like some groundhog day in hell. After three weeks of being diligent it’s better, not good by any means, but better. The numbness has burned off, the world is a little bit clearer, I still can’t seem to catch a break right now, but at least it doesn’t feel so shitty.

The lesson tonight is simple, we all fall into the well, some times, deeper than others, but there’s always a way out and you always need to start with the basics. Once those are consistently secured, then you can try some of the more sophisticated things we’ve talked about, but first the basics. ~ Rev Kane