The Ministry of Happiness

Awesome on the Appalachian Trail

Posted on January 21, 2017 by Michael Kane

Awesome on the Appalachian Trail

My friend Awesome

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. ~Winston Churchill

Today a really special post, it’s the earliest part of thru-hiking season on the Appalachian Trail (AT) and one of my former hiking partners is hitting the trail. His trail name is Awesome and a more aptly taken trail name there has never been. I met awesome in my 2015 thru-hike attempt on the AT. There are a couple of stories about him in my book that is soon to be published.

I first met awesome one night coming into camp with my friend Backtrack. Awesome came over and introduced himself. He’s a happy guy with a wonderful southern drawl and an easy manner. My friend mentioned some pain he was having and Awesome asked, “your cheese grater thighs?” Backtrack and I were dumbfounded, we’d had a conversation using that exact term prior to coming into camp. Sensing our confusion Awesome smiled and said, “Y’all ain’t the quietest people on the trail.” We laughed hysterically. It was a wonderful first meeting and few minutes later Awesome’s campmate Kingfisher would come over and say hi as well. It was the first meeting of a group that would get nicknamed the AARP group on the trail. Awesome has become more than a friend, more than trail family, he’s family to me.

Awesome, Backtrack, Rev Kan, and the Kingfisher

Awesome, Backtrack, Rev Kane, and Kingfisher

Awesome will be starting out on his thru-hike attempt this weekend and I wish him all of the luck in the world. Luck is the only thing he’ll need, he’s a helluva hiker and good man, so with some luck and a little trail magic he should be climbing Mount Katahdin in Maine in a few months.

Geared up and ready to go

Please my friends, if you encounter him on the trail show him some kindness, buy him a drink or give him a ride some place. I’ll keep you posted time to time on his progress, if you want to provide some trail magic for him feel free to contact me at HappinessKane@aol.com and I’ll let you know when he’s in your neck of the woods.

I’m so happy for him right now, and so damn jealous. I wish I was heading out with him and I hope to, later in his hike, catch up and spend a few days with him on the trail. He’s about to have many happy days. ~ Rev Kane

Some of my previous Appalachian Trail Posts

AT Happiness: Trail Community

My Favorite Trail Photos of 2015

AT FAQs

AT Happiness: Precious Moments

Hello 2017 – Here’s to Happiness in the New Year

Posted on January 17, 2017 by Michael Kane

Hello 2017 – Here’s to Happiness & Joy in the New Year

Simple Joy

Much as we may wish to make a new beginning, some part of us resists doing so as though we were making the first step toward disaster. ~ William Throsby Bridges

Welcome 2017! Let us look positively on the coming year. I used the picture above because it may be the best picture ever taken of me expressing joy. In the picture, I had been on the Appalachian Trail for about four days, I was tired, hungry and I really wanted a Coke. Coming out of the woods above Fontana Dam and I saw this Coke machine and well the picture says it all. The best part, it was a working machine and I had a dollar.

I use this picture tonight because today I submitted my full book to the Amazon publishing process and if all goes well could have my galley proof this week. I’m incredibly excited about this and when I get it in my hand I expect to feel quite a bit of joy. The beginning of the year hasn’t been all good, I’ve hurt my knee again. I tweaked it on a hike coming off of Jebel Khash in Jordan and when I stepped up my level of workout this weekend my knee reacted badly. So I’m back in a knee brace and out of the gym for at least a week. But our happiness is not a matter of what happens to us, but how we react. Basically our level of happiness is a choice determined by our conscious reactions. So I’ve chosen to accept my bad knee and look at this as an opportunity to get more work done this week and to work on strengthening my upper body and left leg. The important things are that we chose to stay positive and move forward.

So Hello 2017 with all of your inevitable ups and downs, my hope for myself and all of you my friends is that you learn acceptance, choose positivity and make the conscious choice to be happy. This year, like all of those that went before, will challenge all of us, but I know my friends that we can all rise to the occasion and have many happy days. ~ Rev Kane

I failed to achieve a single goal this year: It was a great year!

Posted on January 1, 2017 by Michael Kane

***I failed to achieve a single goal this year:* *It was a great year!***

You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space. ~ Johnny Cash

So we start each year by setting goals for ourselves and I’m no different. I set some goals last year, I wanted to lose 20 pounds, I wanted to publish my book on the Appalachian Trail, there were some smaller ones but these were the biggies. So here we sit at the end of 2016 and in fact, I’ve lost 15 pounds and the book is a couple of weeks from publication. By any objective measure, failure. At least from one perspective and perspective is truly what we need as we set out on any endeavor. I failed to meet my goals, but the book will soon be published, I did lose 15 pounds and keep it off for six months. Those are hugely positive things. Improving my life can be called success. Like our happiness, things are often a matter of our deciding our reaction to the situation. I have a choice tonight, I can wallow in my failure or enjoy my improvement. I choose the later, I choose positivity, I choose happiness and I hope you do to.

On a friend’s Facebook page today he asked for advice for the new year. This is what I wrote, do something that scares you, find adventure no matter how small, and go someplace you have never been before this year. If you do it right, you can accomplish all three in one trip. One of the things I have endeavored to do since beginning this blog, 2017 starts the seventh year, is to follow my own advice and I recently did just that. They’ll be some posts soon but I just returned from a trip to Jordan in the Middle East. It’s a bit scary traveling in the Middle East these days as an American. I found adventure there in many ways, four wheeling in the desert, riding a donkey up insane stone stairs and even riding a camel across the desert, and of course Jordan and more particularly Petra, was someplace I’d never been before. One trip, all three, a magnificent experience. So Happy New Year my friends and my 2017 bring you many happy days. ~ Rev Kane

Rev Kane in front of the Treasury Building in the 2000 year-old stone city of Petra in Jordan.

A Post Thanksgiving Hug

Posted on November 28, 2016 by Michael Kane

A Post Thanksgiving Hug

When autumn darkness falls, what we will remember are the small acts of kindness: a cake, a hug, an invitation to talk, and every single rose. These are all expressions of a nation coming together and caring about its people. ~ Jens Stoltenberg

So my favorite holiday has just passed, Thanksgiving and although it is a wonderful holiday and many people’s favorite holiday, it also often comes with a bit of baggage. You see Thanksgiving also usually comes with a gathering of family and family gatherings can often be stressful. It is also a time when we also let people into our circle and into our heads and hearts, people we ordinarily keep at a distance because of the pain they inflict. We do this because they are blood, because we are expected to by people we care about.

I also today have a couple of friends who are really struggling, the trials in their life at the moment have gotten a bit hairy. I’m glad they’ve come to me, to talk, that I can help even just a little bit. I also realize friends that many of you, like I often do, keep quiet when you’re hurting. So there are more of you out there hurting than any of us know. So tonight, nothing so deep or philosophical to say, just a simple hello, a hug and to let you know that someone out there cares, reach out. If you really don’t have anyone, you can reach out to me at happinesskane@aol.com. Someone always cares my friends, you just have to keep your eyes open and be willing to reach out. Have a happy day ~ Rev Kane

My Annual Thanksgiving Hike

Posted on November 25, 2016 by Michael Kane

My Annual Thanksgiving Hike

If you are seeking creative ideas go out walking, angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk ~ Raymond Inmon

So when I was younger Thanksgiving meant getting up at 3:30 in the morning, gearing up and heading into the woods to go deer hunting. Thanksgiving was always a special hunting day because it was the one time of year that I got to hunt with my grandfather. The best thing was coming in after being cold, eating a big breakfast, showering and then eating a big family dinner, taking a quick nap while watching football then back out to hunt the afternoon.

I have hunted in a very long time and decades ago, no longer hunting I adopted a new tradition, my annual Thanksgiving hike. Unless I’m out-of-town I head out Thanksgiving morning, hike and cook in the afternoon.

This year was extra good, a hike, a great meal and my favorite team the Pittsburgh Steelers beating the Indianapolis Colts. Today I did about 10 miles out of Walker Pass north to Morris Peak and back, great day. Business like REI and other folks have been trying to foster a new tradition on Black Friday, making it an outdoors day, so go take a hike instead of spending all of your money and fighting crowds and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

Frost on the trail, it was a chilly morning

Happiness is Las Vegas & Monty Python

Posted on November 21, 2016 by Michael Kane

Happiness is Las Vegas & Monty Python

It’s a helluva start, being able to know what makes you happy ~ Lucille Ball

As a teenager I discovered Monty Python’s Flying Circus on PBS, it was a revelation. Utter and complete silliness, dead parrots and fish fights and Terry Gilliam’s amazing illustrations. As promised it was always something different.

So this weekend I went to Las Vegas to see John Cleese and Eric Idle reminisce about their careers in comedy. It was an amazing show, their stories were amazing, the clips spectacular, and the skits very funny.

I have a number of friends in Las Vegas and it was great to get a chance to hang out with them, eat a few great meals and have a bit of fun. Of course, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, so I’m not going to say anything else, but we may have had an impact on gravity.

So go have some fun, it’s only a flesh wound after all and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

Happiness and the Election

Posted on November 8, 2016 by Michael Kane

Happiness and the Election

A smile is the light in your window that tells others that there is a caring, sharing person inside. ~ Denis Waitley

Ok, tomorrow is going to be a very interesting day in the US. There will be lots of anxiety of course, lot’s of false things posted on social media about, how somebody’s uncle’s cousin saw this or that while voting. Don’t fall for any of it, regardless of who you are supporting tomorrow, the day after the election we need to support each other. We all need to remember that we are all Americans, even more importantly, we are all humans and that bond has to be greater than any party you may support, any candidate you support, any story you’ve heard on cable news, or any post you read on social media.

We need to come together after the election and as the public, the owners of our government, we need to hold our leaders to a higher standard than we have in the past. We need to get them to take care of our immigrants AND our veterans, our economy AND our environment, our minority communities AND our police, our children AND our elderly. We can actually do all of that regardless of what your politicians or party tells you. We need to be strong leaders in the world without using our military as our primary form of “diplomacy.” We can do this by having caring and understanding being our first tools of choice, our weapons the tool of last resort.

So the day after the election, elated, angry or indifferent, I’m asking you to do one thing, not for me, but for all of us. Just smile at three strangers over the course of the day. Why? Because a smile is an act of kindness, the antithesis of all the mistrust and anger we have shown each other during this election cycle. It might just be the thing that gets us started on the right path and who knows, maybe a few people will smile back. All that smiling will make us feel better, more trustful, maybe, just maybe we’ll start listening instead of talking at each other. Maybe we’ll decide that the way to solve problems is the best idea, regardless of what party or ideology the idea came from. Who knows, maybe a sophisticated approach of taking the best conservative, liberal, communist, socialist, capitalist, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist ideas and mixing and matching them will actually produce some amazing insights and better all of our lives.

Then again, I think John Lennon had it pretty right in the song imagine. So the day after tomorrow, the day after the election, let’s try to be helpful, kind and grateful and just see what happens. As always though, be good to yourselves, kind to others and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

Posted in personal happiness | Tagged america, clinton, democrat, election, happiness, hillary, republican, the donald, trump | Leave a comment

Happiness and Losing Weight

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Michael Kane

Happiness and Losing Weight

a pair of female feet standing on a bathroom scale looking shy about the weight
To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear. ~ Buddha

So as regular readers know I’ve settled in a new job, new place, new house and after two years of traveling and having not great health insurance I’ve also been setting about getting all of my routine health screenings done. I went to the eye doctor and in to get a physical. I expected that I was in ok condition, I was working out regularly, had lost a couple of pounds and was getting back to eating right after not paying much attention for some time. I was wrong. I had been taking a supplement that it turns out was impacting my high blood pressure medication and the day of my appointment was the middle of an incredibly stressful week at work. So I sat down and they took my blood pressure and it was 170/90, the highest it has been since before I began taking medication 15 years ago.

We did all of the standard blood tests and there would be more bad news, my blood sugar was once again about the line to qualify me as a Type II diabetic, my triglycerides were a little high and my thyroid numbers were low. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t quite depressing, however like I said, I had already started eating a bit better, I was working out regularly so it is a matter of making more changes. Part of that of course is losing weight. I once weighed 250 pounds and when I moved to California in 2002 I lost 40 pounds and got down to around 210. I have floated between 210 and 220 for the last 15 years, I came of the Appalachian Trail last year at around 207 but had gotten back to about 210 when I reached my new home.

So, it is time to lose weight again and honestly it feels like 2002 again, I’m committed to it and have been taking it very seriously. So far I’ve dropped from 210 to 194, what I weighed this morning. My first goal was to be under 200 by my birthday in August and I made it. My next goal is to make 193 by October 1st and it looks like I’ll make that as well. My final goal is to make 180 by the end of the year. I haven’t weighed 180 probably since I was in high school.

People naturally want to know how I’m doing it and I’d love to tell you all that I’ve discovered some magical way to do it. Heck, I’d be a billionaire if I’d figured out an easy way to lose weight, I haven’t. The thing with me is that I LOVE food, I love to eat, I love to cook and I typically eat for three. Throw in an absolute addictive love of Coca-cola and pizza and well, it’s quite easy for me to consume 2500 – 3000 calories in a day. So for me to lose weight it comes down to a few things, reducing portion size, cutting down to one coke and a slice of pizza a week, and really cutting back on carbs. It’s funny how things slip in, I thought I was actually eating ok, but once I started thinking about it, I had to change my mind.

When I get ice before the gym at a fast food place I’d do a little shot of coke prior to just filling the cup with ice. Then of course there would be a day or two where I would end up drinking a whole coke. I was eating a lot of chicken wings and of course they were breaded, there was a cookie or three here or there, the occasional chicken sandwich at the fast food place. Even the pot of soup I made each week had barley, rice, carrots so all of that had to change. So the fast food places are ice only and the occasionally taco salad without rice and I don’t eat the shell. My soups, beyond the carbs contained in vegetables are carb-free, no carrots, rice, or barley. My dinners are now meat and vegetables, a lot more salads. But it’s not boring food, I make a mean funky chicken salad, cucumber bean salads, no-pasta lasagna, chilli and lots of stir fries. Water and the occasional cup of tea are all that I drink and although I usually allow myself a cheat day each week, I really haven’t been using them. Although I did for my birthday weekend and after going super low-carb for two weeks after that, I took a cheat day this past Friday. However, I am proud to say I haven’t had a coke in over four weeks. I continue to workout five days a week. It’s working, it takes some willpower and discipline but all in all it hasn’t been terribly hard.

I handled the blood pressure issue by getting off the supplement and returning to my daily meditations in the morning and evening. I’ve adjusted my attitude at work a bit and in fact the other morning, pre-meds I was 127/72 so things are back on track there. I have an appointment this week to get put on thyroid medicine, this one might be big. There have been some things I’ve been dealing with over the last year that make a lot of sense in light of the thyroid issue. Some skin issues, sleep disruption, needing some extra sleep and I’ve been fighting off my mood dips a lot more than I should be given what’s going on my life and how happy I legitimately am. So after a few weeks hopefully my body and brain chemistries we’ll be back in line. One upside, higher thyroxin levels should also increase my metabolism a bit an maybe make it a little easier to make my goals.

So that’s all well and good my friends but what’s the lesson here related to happiness? The lesson comes from how I’ve been dealing with all of this. It always comes back to the basics, taking care of yourself and your attitude. I’ve been tired so I go to bed earlier, working out and eating better help all of this. For me, as I’ve written about before, I write away the darkness, so in my poetry I rage or explore the pain in my heart and my head, if I write it out I feel better. Also, I make the decision to try and stay positive, I write this blog, I express gratitude for what I have and I remember to both give myself a break, and some downtime every day. It’s a simple formula but it works and it can work for you my friends and help you have happier days. ~ Rev Kane

Looking Forward

Posted on August 15, 2016 by Michael Kane

Looking Forward

I shouldn’t say I’m looking forward to leading a normal life, because I don’t know what normal is. ~ Martina Navratilova

It was a very stressful week my friends, several weeks into a new job and lots of deadlines converging at once. Several problems also popped up, I made my first mistake, a minor one, but still one that caused a bit of stress. In the end, everything was resolved and nothing terrible happened. It’s education after all, no one dies when we have issues. Of course right in the middle of all of this I had my first doctor’s appointment now that I’m back on health insurance. Things have been going well for me physically, I’m working out regularly and eating right, I’ve lost a little weight. So I expected things would be fine but my blood pressure was 170/90, and would rise as much as 210/90 before the week was over and I had to double up my medication. It’s currently high, 145/77 but has been dropping the last few days while back to my normal dosage.

So now it’s time to figure out how to reduce my stress level at work. You see one of the things that makes me good at my job is that I truly care about doing a good job, about getting things done. Of course, that also means that when things don’t well, it impacts me, I take it too much to heart. So, for my own good, I have to learn to not let it impact me. Of course that also means caring a bit less about what I do, a bit of catch-22.

So why is the title of tonight’s post looking forward, because that’s what you do my friends. You stay positive, you solve your problems and you keep heading toward what makes you happy. For me that means continuing what I’ve been doing, and working towards my goals. It also means remaining grateful for what I currently have in my life. That’s the secret friends, move forward, stay positive, be grateful for what you have, work toward your goals and you’ll have many happy days ~ Rev Kane

Happiness on Facebook

Posted on August 1, 2016 by Michael Kane

So tonight Facebook blocked my post on being happy at work, perhaps by embedding it they will let it post. ~ Rev Kane

https://revkane.com/2016/08/01/how-to-be-happy-at-work/

Posted in personal happiness | Leave a comment

The Ministry of Happiness

Awesome on the Appalachian Trail

Awesome on the Appalachian Trail

Some of my previous Appalachian Trail Posts

Hello 2017 – Here’s to Happiness in the New Year

Hello 2017 – Here’s to Happiness & Joy in the New Year

Other Posts You Might Enjoy!

I failed to achieve a single goal this year: It was a great year!

***I failed to achieve a single goal this year:* *It was a great year!***

Other Posts You Might Enjoy!

A Post Thanksgiving Hug

A Post Thanksgiving Hug

Other Posts You Might Enjoy!

My Annual Thanksgiving Hike

My Annual Thanksgiving Hike

Other Posts You Might Enjoy!

Happiness is Las Vegas & Monty Python

Happiness is Las Vegas & Monty Python

Other Posts You Might Enjoy!

Happiness and the Election

Happiness and the Election

Happiness and Losing Weight

Happiness and Losing Weight

Other Posts You Might Enjoy!

Looking Forward

Looking Forward

Other Posts You Might Enjoy!

Happiness on Facebook

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