The Ministry of Happiness

Happiness is Mardi Gras: New Orleans

Posted on August 8, 2019 by Michael Kane

Happiness is Mardi Gras: New Orleans

I was a weird kid, which probably goes a long way to explaining why I’m a weird adult. I was the only kid I knew who didn’t like parades. I mean really, go sit on a curb for an hour or so, you know so you don’t lose your good spot. Watch a bunch of old guys and little kids all bored out of their minds come walking by, marching bands, bad marching bands. A few fire trucks, some really sad-looking clowns all for what? Never got the excitement around them.

Seat ladders for the little ones

Then some years ago I checked off a bucket list item and attended my first Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I wandered up St. Charles and took a spot in the crowd near one of the barriers and waited on the parade to come. There was a bit of a flashback, there early, by the curb waiting. People seemed generally happy and were very friendly. Little kids propped up on ladder seats, people with coolers, who once they found out it was my first parade started sharing all sorts of food and drinks with me.

Then the parade came, this was not the lame old parade I was used to in my childhood. First the floats were huge and really well done. The marching bands were really talented. You could hear the crowd screaming with joy as the parade came down St. Charles. Then the first float arrived and the krewe on the float was throwing beads and stuffed animals and cups and medallions. People were going nuts for these throws coming off of the floats and honestly it’s almost impossible to not get completely swept up in the madness, I was not immune. I was instantly in love with Mardi Gras parades.

I often tell people that I love Mardi Gras and I typically get, “not me, all the nudity and drunkenness is a turn off.” It’s at that point I know they’ve never done a Mardi Gras parade. What they are relating is the drunken debauchery, the giant frat party that Bourbon Street has turned into during Mardi Gras. literally the place I spend the least amount of time when I’m in New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I love attending the parades and I love shooting photos in New Orleans, at the parades and around the city in general and then there is the food, my god the food. New Orleans is an eaters paradise. At any level of culinary snobbery there are places to eat. I’m not a five-star restaurant guy I prefer beignets and the cafeteria magnificence that are places like Mothers and Willie Mae’s Scotch House. Give me a muffaletta at the Central Grocery and I’m a happy man. Opportunities for Gumbo and Po’boys abound, eating there is such a pleasure.

This Mardi Gras in NOLA was no exception. I had a blast, met great people at the parades and hung out with folks from NOLA, Virginia, Amsterdam and China. Caught lots of beads and great throws and ate like a starving man several times a day. I’ll do a post in a few days with more photos I shot on the trip. So Happy Fat Tuesday, Happy Mardi Gras and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

Some Other Posts You Might Enjoy!

How Travel Makes You Happier

Fear is Killing Your Happiness

Our Best Happiness Posts of 2015

My favorite Appalachian Trail Photos of 2015

Why I’m Happy Right Now!

Posted in Happiness is Adventure | Tagged beignets, cafe du monde, fat tuesday, happiness, Mardi Gras, new orleans, parades | 8 Comments

How Happiness is Related to Age

Posted on August 6, 2019 by Michael Kane

How Happiness is Related to Age

Comes with age

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty ~ Coco Chanel

Tonight a quick post, I encountered a really interesting bit of reading this week on the idea of how we perceive happiness differently at different ages, I hope you enjoy it and as always have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

The Happiest I’ve Ever Been

Posted on August 5, 2019 by Michael Kane

The Happiest I’ve Ever Been

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself. ~ Henry David Thoreau

So this is my 1300th post on the Ministry of Happiness. I realize that 1300 isn’t a typical milestone for anything, but it is for me and the blog. You see the core function of this blog has always been through story, example and resources to help people live a happier life. This concept has actually gotten a bit of derision in the last few years and even a bit of satire. There have been several posts in the last few years, unfortunately I couldn’t track them down, making fun of the pursuit of happiness. I get it, like just about everything good, people eventually will go overboard, the media will blow it out of proportion and it will get talked about incessantly until we are all utterly annoyed with the idea.

And yes, obsessing over happiness or anything else, is not the best thing to do. So if you spend all of your time obsessing and worrying over happiness, trying five new ways to be happy every week, you’re probably not very happy. So moderation in everything, even the pursuit of happiness is a really good idea. Becoming obsessed and worried about anything is a sure ticket to becoming unhappy, as I’ve written about before, worry is the enemy of happiness.

If you’ve read this blog for any amount of time you know that a big part of the reason I started this blog was because I had struggled with depression for a long time. And as I learned more about how to be happier I started to pass that information on via this blog. The blog has morphed over time, I’ve gotten less nail on the head, and instead have tended to talk about my life and travels and tried to draw lessons from both to remind us all how to be a little bit happier. I feel that I’ve had some success in this respect, I get this from some of the comments and personal notes that have been sent to me. I have always said that writing this blog has been the most rewarding writing project I’ve ever done. I certainly get as much or more out of writing it, as you do reading it. So thank you for reading and participating and especially for your comments which I really appreciate it, it lets me know how I’m doing.

The big reason this is such an important post for me is because of a realization that recently occurred. In conversation with a friend it dawned on me that there is nothing dragging down my happiness right now. Over the years I’ve dealt with the long-standing issues we all drag with us out of our childhood. Currently, my job is going really well, there is no major drama in my interpersonal life. I’ve moved to a great place, made some new friends, and reconnected with others. Recently I’ve finally worked my way past the biggest remaining interpersonal stressor in my life. As such, my mental and emotional landscape is flat, no obstacles in any direction. That reality has produced a mellow and happy, calmness is my life. This does not mean my life is perfect, I have some health issues to deal with, I need to lose another 20 pounds, I haven’t been romantically inclined with anyone in several years. But my outlook on life has certainly improved, and this new state of mind has definitely allowed me to view things more positively.

So the natural question is how did you get to this point? I could be a bit snarky and say, you only need to read the previous 1299 posts, and I’d be thrilled if you did. And although that would give you the insight, let me be a little more direct and a lot more brief. I’ve worked on myself, and that’s a popular and totally nebulous phrase. What I mean by that is that I’ve taken the time to examine my life and myself. I’ve looked at what has gone right and wrong and took an honest look at my role in each. After that I try and continue to do the things that made things better, and not repeat the things that made things worse. Sounds simple, but it takes years to go from where I was in my twenties to where I am now.

Let me give you an example. In my life life some of my relatives were negative influences, the type of people that are uncaring, unsupportive and at times downright overly critical and mean. On the other hand, my granny was my biggest cheerleader. So I eventually cut the negative people out of my life and spent more time to in contact with my granny. I’ve done similar things with losing weight, with getting out of my comfort zone and achieving some of the other goals in my life, including producing this blog every Sunday night. So tonight friends, a thank you for your support and a hope that your work is progressing as well as mine and that you have many more happy days. ~ Rev Kane

Posted in personal happiness | Tagged balance in life, be happy, blog, happiness, happy, life, pursuit of happiness, rev kane | Leave a comment

A silly moment in the woods

Posted on August 2, 2019 by Michael Kane

A silly moment in the woods

Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans. It is lovely to be silly at the right moment. ~ Horace

So as I hiked in the forest the other day I noticed a sign that seemed a little confusing to me.

My confusion came from the thought of why the wildlife, might need to be insured. My answer came with a quick turn to the right and another sign.

Apparently the wildlife has been feeding on the plants and the plants are on drugs! Ok, just a little bit of silliness to raise a smile and help you have a happy day my friends

~ Rev Kane

Posted in Happiness is Laughter | Tagged fun, funny, happiness, laughter, plants, signs, wildlife | Leave a comment

Even More, Happiness Signs & Sayings

Posted on July 31, 2019 by Michael Kane

Even More, Happiness Signs & Sayings

Posted in personal happiness | Tagged blog, charity, giving, happiness, kindness, positivity, quote, quotes, sayings, signs, writing | Leave a comment

Whale Tails and Happiness

Posted on July 29, 2019 by Michael Kane

Whale Tails and Happiness

The whales do not sing because they have an answer, they sing because they have a song. ~ Gregory Colbert

I’m lucky that in my job during the Summer we work four days a week, ten hours a day. Unfortunately, Summer is running out for the college calendar and next week will already be my last free Summer Friday. I suddenly had this realization last week, and determined to make my last two Fridays count, so I decided to use this past Friday to go whale watching.

The flat mark is the slick left after a whale dives

I used to go whale watching fairly regularly when I lived near Monterey, CA and so on Friday I headed back down that way, Moss Landing to be specific, and set out with Sanctuary Cruises.

Whale watching like any nature related activity requires patience, and it was certainly tested on this trip. What was supposed to be a two hour trip started to get tentative once we were a full hour and fifteen minutes into the trip and still heading out away from the coast. It was a wonderfully flat day on the sea with some cloud cover and the temperature was nice. Everything was great, just no whales. We did see a couple of harbor porpoises but nothing else. It started to seem like we would end up turning around and seeing nothing when someone yelled two o’clock. There off the starboard bow were a couple of humpback whale blows. It would turn out to be four animals and we would get about a half an hour of observation as we followed them around.

On any whale watch, whales aren’t the only attraction. On the way out of the harbor we saw otters

sea lions

lots of birds

and most excitedly on the way in we saw a flock of 60,000 shearwaters. These birds who travel the Pacific in these giant flocks from time to time get sick. One year, as the flock was ill, the birds skidded in land to a town named Capitola on the California coast. They were everywhere, disoriented and slamming into buildings and windows, birds filled the town, it was damn near apocalyptic. And in the middle of it all was a man named Alfred Hitchcock. Seeing this massive flock I absolutely believe that story as the inspiration for the movie The Birds.

I think I was meant to be a pirate, or a sailor at the least. My paternal grandfather’s family were fisherman in back in Ireland, I truly think some that has soaked into my genes. I feel peaceful and calm on the ocean, it’s one of the few places where I feel I absolutely belong. But as Jimmy Buffet so eloquently put it, I’m two-hundred years too late.

There are activities and places where we all feel peaceful and calm my friends. It’s important that from time to time that we visit them, they are important for our souls and our happiness, have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane

Posted in personal happiness | Tagged adventure, be happy, california, happiness, happy, humpback whales, ocean, whale watching, whales | 2 Comments

How love impacts Happiness

Posted on July 26, 2019 by Michael Kane

How love impacts Happiness

Happiness and Love

My nightly tour around the net stumbled on this and I thought you might find it interesting, have a great weekend and a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

From 10 Things you might not know about love by Barbara Fredrikson

1. It can be hard to talk about love in scientific terms because people have strong pre-existing ideas about it.
The vision of love that emerges from the latest science requires a radical shift. I learned that I need to ask people to step back from their current views of love long enough to consider it from a different perspective: their body’s perspective. Love is not romance. It’s not sexual desire. It’s not even that special bond you feel with family or significant others.
And perhaps most challenging of all, love is neither lasting nor unconditional. The radical shift we need to make is this: Love, as your body experiences it, is a micro-moment of connection shared with another.

2. Love is not exclusive.
We tend to think of love in the same breath as loved ones. When you take these to be only your innermost circle of family and friends, you inadvertently and severely constrain your opportunities for health, growth and well-being.
In reality, you can experience micro-moments of connection with anyone — whether your soul mate or a stranger. So long as you feel safe and can forge the right kind of connection, the conditions for experiencing the emotion of love are in place.

3. Love doesn’t belong to one person.
We tend to think of emotions as private events, confined to one person’s mind and skin. Upgrading our view of love defies this logic. Evidence suggests that when you really “click” with someone else, a discernible yet momentary synchrony emerges between the two of you, as your gestures and biochemistries, even your respective neural firings, come to mirror one another in a pattern I call positivity resonance. Love is a biological wave of good feeling and mutual care that rolls through two or more brains and bodies at once.

4. Making eye contact is a key gateway for love.
Your body has the built-in ability to “catch” the emotions of those around you, making your prospects for love — defined as micro-moments of positivity resonance — nearly limitless. As hopeful as this sounds, I also learned that you can thwart this natural ability if you don’t make eye contact with the other person. Meeting eyes is a key gatekeeper to neural synchrony.

5. Love fortifies the connection between your brain and your heart, making you healthier.
Decades of research show that people who are more socially connected live longer and healthier lives. Yet precisely how social ties affect health has remained one of the great mysteries of science.
My research team and I recently learned that when we randomly assign one group of people to learn ways to create more micro-moments of love in daily live, we lastingly improve the function of the vagus nerve, a key conduit that connects your brain to your heart. This discovery provides a new window into how micro-moments of love serve as nutrients for your health.

6. Your immune cells reflect your past experiences of love.
Too often, you get the message that your future prospects hinge on your DNA. Yet the ways that your genes get expressed at the cellular level depends mightily on many factors, including whether you consider yourself to be socially connected or chronically lonely.
My team is now investigating the cellular effects of love, testing whether people who build more micro-moments of love in daily life also build healthier immune cells.

7. Small emotional moments can have disproportionately large biological effects.
It can seem surprising that an experience that lasts just a micro-moment can have any lasting effect on your health and longevity. Yet I learned that there’s an important feedback loop at work here, an upward spiral between your social and your physical well-being.
That is, your micro-moments of love not only make you healthier, but being healthier builds your capacity for love. Little by little, love begets love by improving your health. And health begets health by improving your capacity for love.

8. Don’t take a loving marriage for granted.
Writing this book has profoundly changed my personal view of love. I used to uphold love as that constant, steady force that all but defines my marriage. While that constant, steady force still exists, I now see our bond as a product of the many micro-moments of positivity resonance that my husband and I have shared over the years. This shakes me out of any complacency that tempts me to take our love for granted. Love is something we should re-cultivate every single day.

9. Love and compassion can be one and the same.
If we reimagine love as micro-moments of shared positivity, it can seem like love requires that you always feel happy. I learned that this isn’t true. You can experience a micro-moment of love even as you or the person with whom you connect suffers.
Love doesn’t require that you ignore or suppress negativity. It simply requires that some element of kindness, empathy or appreciation be added to the mix. Compassion is the form love takes when suffering occurs.

10. Simply upgrading your view of love changes your capacity for it.
The latest science offers new lenses through which to see your every interaction. The people I interviewed for the book shared incredibly moving stories about how they used micro-moments of connection to make dramatic turnarounds in their personal and work lives.
One of the most hopeful things I learned is that when people take just a minute or so each day to think about whether they felt connected and attuned to others, they initiate a cascade of benefits. And this is something you could start doing today, having learned even just this much more about how love works.

Happiness is little hugs!

Posted on July 25, 2019 by Michael Kane

Happiness is little hugs!

When you are hugging a child, always be the last one to let go. You never know how long they need it. ~Author Unknown

So as some of you may know it’s been a particularly tough time for me lately. My mother is very ill and in the hospital and at one point we didn’t think she would pull through, we’re a bit more optimistic now.

Because of this I rushed back to NY driving across much of the country in three days. Since last Saturday I have settled into a simple pattern. Wake up, go to the hospital, spend much of the day there with my mother, go home to my sister’s house, repeat.

My mother’s condition has been very much on a roller coaster, one day good, the next day not so much, some time changing drastically within each day. The up and down of this all has left me emotionally scraped to the bone.

But life is never all bad and there definitely have been some silver linings. My mother, my sister and I have spent a lot of time together, more than we have spent together in years. As sick as she has been, my mother has remained mentally sharp. In staying with my sister and her husband, I am also staying with my nephew and two nieces, one of which, little Rooney, is two years old.

No matter how hard the day, the first thing I see at night when I open the door is little Rooney smiling and saying, “Hi Uncle Mike!” Her adorable smile and sparkling eyes welcoming me home, she immediately escorts me to my room and points out my stuff for me. Tonight she was entertaining me with stories about her boat and classroom, much as she has on other nights, the details ever in flux.

And always, loving kisses and tiny little hugs, small in size but most powerful in their impact. So go out and get yourself a tiny hug my friends and have a happy day ~ Rev Kane

Posted in personal happiness | Tagged children, family, happiness, hugs, love, nephews, nieces | Leave a comment

Happiness Resources: Positivity, Kindness & Gratitude

Posted on July 23, 2019 by Michael Kane

Happiness Resources: Positivity, Kindness & Gratitude

Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right ~ Henry Ford

So tonight in my tour around the web I decided to find some resources related to a couple of areas that are very important to your happiness: having a positive outlook on life; being kind; and expressing gratitude. So check them out and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

POSITIVITY

The first is a site that aggregates posts on positivity and is called the Power of Positivity

A good piece with a hideous photograph, The Power of Positive Thinking

Speak no evil: the power of positive thinking

KINDNESS

A wonderful story about a man who decided to do 30 Acts of Kindness for 30 Days http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2014/02/acts_of_kindness_from_jersey_city_man_shocks_strangers.html

A former piece I wrote along the same line, There are Angels Among Us https://ministryofhappiness.wordpress.com/2012/12/04/there-are-angels-among-us-a-true-story-of-kindness-giving/

A really great site, The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation http://www.randomactsofkindness.org/

GRATITUDE

From our friends at Zen Habits, Why Living a Life of Gratitude Can Make You Happy

The Link Between Happiness and Gratitude

Practicing Gratitude Can Increase Your Happiness