The Ministry of Happiness

Resilience helps us be happy

Posted on September 14, 2020 by Michael Kane

Resilience helps us be happy

I heard something this week that really hit home, this is the 26th week of lockdown. Hyperbole aside, it has been 26 weeks since we first had to shelter in place due to COVID. I’ve talked in many of my COVID diary posts about the specific challenges so I feel no need to rehash them all here. But I think it’s safe to say every one of us is under a little more pressure, has a little more stress than normal right now. And since the challenges associated with life in COVID times are bound to be with us for awhile, one characteristic that can really help keep you happy is resilience. More simply said, the ability to take the hits thrown at us all and be able to recover. So I thought tonight I would be talk about how to better develop our resilience skills.

I’ve sourced a lot of what I’m going to talk about from an article on resilience in Greater Good Magazine. The article talks about five techniques/skills that you can employ to help you build resilience. Here they are:

Change the narrative

Almost all of us, I was shocked to read an article earlier this year that stated that some people don’t, have an inner dialogue that we run with ourselves. Very often when we face hard times, we can get a bit obsessed with the issue we’re dealing with and focus our internal conversation on that issue. Well something that the authors suggested, and that I can personally vouch for is the power of writing. The exercise that they recommend is doing 20 minutes of free writing on the topic your obsessing about. Basically you just write whatever comes into your mind about the topic. Doing this several days in a row has been shown to make people feel happier months after the event. I personally don’t think there is anything magic about the length of time. For me, I’ve done this for a very long time, what’s important is burning off the energy you have around what’s stressing you. So take some time and a blank sheet a paper to just write about COVID, homeschooling, trying to balance work, COVID, homeschooling all at once, whatever your personal stressor is at this time. Don’t censor yourself, don’t beat yourself up about what you write. Then after, shred, rip or burn up the paper. You may write things that others would find unflattering or that you feel the same about, it’s ok, it’s about burning off the energy and getting it out of your system.

Face your fears

This to me is one of the bigger long-term ways to build resilience and something I’ve done a lot of in my life. We all have have anxieties and fears. What’s important is developing the sense in your life that you can overcome those fears. That feeling allows you to begin to minimize your anxiety around the things you can’t control, and to truly face an eliminate fears you have around things you can control. The method here is to gradually do things that push you out of your comfort zone and make you nervous. This doesn’t mean that you go out tomorrow and sky dive, but to do small things every day that make you uncomfortable so that you begin to get that feeling of overcoming things that make you anxious. This can lead to the ability to take on really big things, huge adventures most wouldn’t even consider. Let me give you a very concrete example from my own life.

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time you probably know that five years ago I hiked a thousand miles on the Appalachian Trail. Prior to undertaking that I had never done an unsupported overnight hike in my entire life and I was setting out to do it every day for six months. But I didn’t just wake up one day, decide to do that and set out. I worked up to it over ten years and a lot of steps. First, I was a day hiker, so I spent time doing day hikes in increasingly tougher terrain, in more unfamiliar places. Every time you go on a hike in a new place, especially someplace remote, there’s anxiety. But after you’ve done it a bunch of times that anxiety turns mostly into excitement. Then I went on supported long-distance hikes. I hiked something called the Great Glenn Way in Scotland. I hiked for a week but each night I was in a nice bed and breakfast and the end of each day of hiking. This then lead to a huge adventure, a 30 day fully supported hike in Nepal to go to base camp on Mt. Everest. We didn’t have to carry much weight, there were sherpas supporting us, guides and we were incredibly well taken care of. But there was a new element, hiking at elevation, up to 18,000 feet, to deal with. After these adventures, and with a lot of self-education, I was ready to tackle with Appalachian Trail. This is not to say with something this huge there was no anxiety, there was a lot. But most things we tackle daily don’t involve completely turning your life upside down, quitting your job, becoming homeless and living in the woods for months at time with lions, tigers and bears. Ok, just bears, but I love that line.

My point in this example is that anything that your anxious about you can tackle. But take it slow, do small things that stress you and learn from successfully doing them, by doing that you develop the ability to take on even bigger things. I promise regularly doing these sorts of things will make you more resilient.

Practice self compassion

I’ve taken the following straight out of the article:

One practice, the Self-Compassion Break, is something you can do any time you start to feel overwhelmed by pain or stress. It has three steps, which correspond to the three aspects of self-compassion:

Be mindful: Without judgment or analysis, notice what you’re feeling. Say, “This is a moment of suffering” or “This hurts” or “This is stress.”
Remember that you’re not alone: Everyone experiences these deep and painful human emotions, although the causes might be different. Say to yourself, “Suffering is a part of life” or “We all feel this way” or “We all struggle in our lives.”
Be kind to yourself: Put your hands on your heart and say something like “May I give myself compassion” or “May I accept myself as I am” or “May I be patient.”

I think this is really great. We need to be kinder to ourselves, especially when we’re stressed and under pressure. As the article recommends we have to be mindful of reality, you’re being put under pressure, acknowledge it and remember it’s ok. Remember others have been here before, maybe you’ve been here before. There’s help to get through this, there’s information, family and friends who you can reach out to if you need. Finally, be kind to yourself, treat yourself like you would treat your best friend if they were in the same situation.

Meditate

I’m a big fan of meditation, and it’s something I need to do more of myself. I’m a terrible meditator. The key point is to quiet your mind and I have a very hard time doing that. The article offers several really good meditations you can use, even if you’re not a good meditator. More than everything else though, it’s about taking time and just stopping. There’s a TV commercial I really like right now, it’s an image of dripping leaves in a forest in the rain. It says, do nothing for 30 seconds and a little graphic timer runs down the time. That 30 seconds seems like a long time, that’s when I know I need to take a break from everything for a bit. Even just five minutes, whenever you can sneak it in between all of the madness in your life is beneficial. You can Google, five, ten, twenty minute meditations. I prefer the ones that are just nature sounds. Just take the time to stop, relax, let it all go. If you can work up to better and deeper meditations great, but be kind to yourself and just stop once a day and give yourself a break.

Cultivate forgiveness

Finally, if interpersonal issues are what are making it difficult for you to more easily bounce back from things that happen to you, forgiveness is the way. I say that from the experience of spending a good part of my life as a young man being very angry. The anger and it’s impacts contributed to my life spiraling out of control. It was certainly a factor that led me to alcoholism and addiction. It took decades to get to a place where I was free of that anger and able to practice forgiveness. It’s not easy, but the better you get at this, quite frankly, the happier you’ll be. There are some excellent suggestions in the article for how to get better at forgiveness.

Hopefully my words tonight, and the resource I’ve provided can help you develop more resilience, help you better deal with our difficult times and help you have happier days my friends. ~ Rev Kane

Posted in personal happiness | Tagged anxiety, be happy, covid life, happiness, hiking, resilience, self-help, stress | 1 Comment

Take a Deep Breath, Move Forward

Posted on September 13, 2020 by Michael Kane

Take a Deep Breath, Move Forward

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. ~ Rev Kane

Originally posted August, 2019

Transitions and changes seem ever-present and in the last year and I have certainly self-imposed a ton of those on myself. The gears will certainly be shifting in 2016, unfortunately I didn’t become independently wealthy this year so it will be back to work. I’ll be heading back west in the early part of the year and starting the job search. At some point I’ll even have a normal place to live, I have to admit, I’m looking forward to living someplace for the first time in 15 months where I actually control the thermostat!

This week I left my speedy and overactive mind get ahead of itself as it is want to do. I was already calculating that I have a trip in mid-January, one at the end of January, the holidays are here and the book’s not done. I was feeling very much like I’m out of time and have not accomplished the big goal, getting the book done. Time to take a breath.

I started meditating again this week, it’s so silly how I can get out of the habit of doing something that I enjoy and is so good for me. I’ve also had my head spinning over a long-standing relationship and have unfortunately gone to ground like I do, rebuilding the walls around myself that protect me. The cumulative effect though has been to calm my brain down and get me to breathe and look around with a better eye.

I have six weeks left to work on the book here (I’ve only been here 5 weeks), I’ll have extra time around Christmas. I had a ton of blog work to catch up on and that’s done so I can be more focused on the book. Also, about two-thirds of the writing is done and some of the organizing, so I’m not in bad shape to have that first solid rough draft knocked off before I leave. Finally, I can still work on it while on the road heading west and while I’m looking for a job. I really hope to have it into the publishing process by June but that’s new road for me, so it may take some time.

As much as I really hate this time of year I move forward with the reality that life is really good right now, I’ll be at the beach for Christmas, one of my favorite places – St. Joseph’s Bay in Florida. The welcome letter to the house I’m renting talked about snakes, turtles, dolphins and bears, a perfect little mix of forest and beach.

So tonight my friends take your own deep breath, this time of year makes people nuts. You don’t have to be perfect, your house doesn’t have to be spotless, the gifts, whatever they are, or no gift at all will be fine. And if you get silly questions just laugh.

So sit down, smile, relax, have a little eggnog, watch the sunset and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

Posted in personal happiness | Tagged beach, bears, breathe, Christmas, happiness, holidays, meditation, positivity, turtles | Leave a comment

My COVID Times Diary – A day in the life

Posted on September 11, 2020 by Michael Kane

My COVID Times Diary – A day in the life

10AM today in the California Bay Area

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation doesn’t liberate it oppresses. ~ Carl Jung

So as I said in the first COVID Times Diary post that I did, part of the reason I’m writing these is for historical purposes. I want, years from now, for people to be able to read about what was happening in my life during this truly historic time. Particularly my young nieces and nephews who will only somewhat remember what it was like.

Today was one of days. As you can see from the image above, when I opened my door for the first time this morning it was a different world. One advantage of working from home is that I can sleep in. I hope to start work each day at 9AM, like I did on campus. Most days that means waking up at 8, checking email, getting ready and starting work by 9. When I woke up this morning it was still dark in my apartment, really dark. I knew there was a small chance of rain and so I thought it must be dark and cloudy. Once I got up and moving I decided to look out the door, wow. The sky was yellow! To say it looked apocalyptic would be to downplay what it not just looked, but actually felt like. I started work and at about 10AM took another look outside, it was darker and even more eerie, the sky, as you can see above had gone to a dark pumpkin color. A really interesting coincidence was that I had thawed out some homemade pumpkin soup for lunch, the sky matched the color of my soup.

The skies are a result of unprecedented fires on the west coast, according to the news, the smoke overhead was actually from the fires in Oregon, not California. And while there are insanely fast moving and massive fires in Oregon, we have the same thing occurring in the central valley of California. In the last couple of days, small towns in Oregon and Washington have burned to the ground, Medford Oregon had 10,000 people evacuationing. The national guard airlifted 200 hikers and campers out of a campground surrounded by fire in California. Turns out there are hundreds still sheltering and trapped due to fire closed roads in the same area.

Today I talked with an employee who is waiting on COVID test results and learned of two students who are quarantining because of COVID exposure. Today will also be the 14th and final day of a friend’s quarantine for the same reasons. Tonight the board for our college will start the process of making it official that we will not be on campus in the spring. This means we will be working for home for at least 15 months. A promising vaccine trial for Astrazeneca was put on hold today due to a severe problem with a person receiving the vaccine. The news also broke a story that claims the President of the United States purposefully downplayed COVID risks for political reasons.

Six months into the pandemic, life in many ways has returned to something resembling normal. Masks are the order of the day so things absolutely look a bit different. If not for the masks, on the surface things look pretty normal. Well, except for the sky today. But if you look closer you can see all of the little places where the differences show up. The self-check registers at the grocery store only take credit cards because there is a coin shortage due to people spending less in person. You can’t bring your own shopping bags into the store anymore. There are ever changing shortages. Not in terms of not getting food, but in certain items and variety disappearing. Not the mass shortages of last March but little changes. Barley right now is not available in stores locally, tofu and tofu based items from time to time are out. Today, I could only find giant family sized breakfast sausage links and the vegetarian sausage links have rarely been in stock and are up about a dollar in price. Single sized cans of vegetables are rare, corned beef hash recently has become incredibly sparse and frequently out of stock.

Life right now is not what I would call hard for most of us. Now, for the people who have lost their job or who own a struggling small business, it is very difficult. But for most of us, things are not hard, but I think tense is a good term. People are very stressed and uncomfortable and so when you add in anything else, a local protest turning violent, wildfires, yellow skies, or all of the above, it can push people near their breaking point. The thing about everyone being under pressure is that it reveals people, who they really are, what they can handle. Add into the mix the most contentious presidential election in my lifetime and it’s a lot.

Today I heard a lot of nervousness in people’s voices in meetings, in their comments on email and texts. It was unnerving to see a sky that you have only ever seen before as the backdrop in apocalyptic films. It even had me a bit freaked, thank god for the internet, information and science that explained what it was. A hundred years ago, waking up to these skies would have had us all sacrificing animals to the sky gods. It now seems like it’s not if another disaster will occur, but what disaster will occur next, we spend all of our time waiting for the next shoe to drop. ~ Michael ‘Rev’ Kane

Posted in Life in Covid Times | Tagged apocalypse, california, coronavirus, covid times, day in the life, diary, wildfires | Leave a comment

A little pause on the coast

Posted on September 10, 2020 by Michael Kane

A little pause on the coast

My mission in life is to not just merely survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor and some style. ~ Maya Angelou

Originally posted January, 2019

So, as someone who writes a blog on happiness you might think that of course I’m just yippy-skippy happy all the time. That of course is not the case, and if you’ve read this blog for any amount of time, you know that’s not how I roll. Maybe it should be what I do, I’m sure if everything was about being fantastically happy all of the time and how to be that way, I’d have a lot more readers and page views. Which also would then to translate me monetizing the site and making money off of it. As you can tell, this thought has in fact crossed my mind. However, that has never really been what the Ministry of Happiness has been about and I have more respect for all of you than to do that. My goal has always been to portray an honest appraisal of my life and the things I’ve researched, tried and experienced in trying to live a happier life.

So of course, because I’m human and like most humans, not living in a constant state of happiness and bliss, at times I write about being less than happy. As I’ve discussed a number of times on the site, I used to suffer from depression fairly regularly, I’m happy to say that I’ve beaten that back and rarely find myself in the type of well I used to regularly have to crawl out of just to function. But right now I find myself in an interesting and not all that comfortable of a place.

First, let me be clear, I have a great life. I’m fortunate to have a few friends I can truly count on, I have people who love me, and people who think positively about me. I’ve worked hard to put myself into a place where I get to do a lot of things people wish they could. I have the opportunity to travel to amazing places, I mean just this year I spent time in Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Mexico.

But I find myself in a weird place right now. I’m staying at the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama. I’ve got a great place across the street from the beach and my days are pretty good. I get to walk the beach every day, I have a gym nearby so I’m working out daily and I’m actually eating more healthily than I have for a while. My goal was to come here to do a few things, get my job search rolling which is coming along, albeit slowly. But also to do some writing and I find myself, oddly, with the time but no motivation. None of the projects I have to work on are inspiring the passion I need to dive into them. Maybe, it’s just a glitch and my recent illness, I actually lost my voice for the first time in my life, has just not run its full course yet. Maybe I was just tired and needed a break.

However I feel there is something deeper involved, something that’s been gnawing at me for a while, a lack of anything to be passionate about. Again, great life, but there is nothing driving me right now, I’m not in love, what I do for work is good, but not rewarding on a significant level, and there is no cause or idea I’m incredibly passionate about right now. What I really need, I think, is just several days of really long conversation with someone I trust, but that is just not an option. And that simple fact has me feeling a bit lonely.

Look, we all want to be happier, but at times things just aren’t going to be what we want them to be. That’s ok, we have to take value from the positive things in our life, push ahead on the things we have to do, and look for opportunities to make a change. The really good news, is that I’m sure what’s missing right now is something that is completely my fault. The reason that is good news, is that if it’s my faulty, it’s under my control and I can make the changes necessary. To be honest my friends, that’s usually the case, so stay positive, look for those change opportunities and have a happy day. ~ Rev Kane

Posted in 2018 Adventure, personal happiness | Tagged adventure, be happy, blog, happiness, happy, loneliness, lonely, maya angelou, travel | 2 Comments

The Importance of Courage and Openness

Posted on September 9, 2020 by Michael Kane

The Importance of Courage and Openness

The secret to happiness is freedom…the secret to freedom is courage. ~ Thucydides

Originally posted January, 2018

So I’ve discussed recently that I’ll soon be taking some time off again. There are a number of options that sit before me. I’ve considered doing a bit of vagabonding, possibly moving to Mexico for a couple of months, I’m having conversations about some business ventures with a friend and doing some hiking.

The thing is that now I’ve taken the first step and resigned my position, I’ve let myself become open to things, honestly open to consider almost anything. It has always been my contention and it’s echoed by Paulo Coehlo’s book the Alchemist, that when you make the effort, the universe does whatever possible to make your dreams come true.

As such some positive little things have been popping up, just yesterday I stumbled into an opportunity to teach English in Taipei including salary and room and board. An idea that I’m actually pretty excited about.

Right now things are utterly chaotic for me, there is no plan, as of July 1st I don’t know where I’ll be living or if I’ll be living anywhere. I don’t know if I’ll be solely focused on a new business venture, vagabonding across the US or moving to Taiwan. It’s all a bit terrifying, but that’s where the courage comes in. But in the process staying open to what life has to offer seems to be bringing me some great opportunities if not a lot of certainty at the moment.

This all comes back to the idea of getting out of your comfort zone to find change in your life. I’m a planner, having everything so up in the air is uncomfortable as hell and definitely outside of my comfort zone, but that’s what also makes it so exciting. As we’ve talked about here before if you’re not happy where you are in life than you have to make a change, change is uncomfortable but often leads to really wonderful things. So have the courage to make that positive change in your life and have a happy day my friends.

~ Rev Kane

Why we do what we do

Posted on September 8, 2020 by Michael Kane

Why we do what we do

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education. ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Originally posted September 7, 2020

Working education at times is less than ideal. As a teacher, particular a secondary or elementary teacher, you can often find yourself spending your own money for materials. Feeling helpless at times about the living situations that your students are in at times. You don’t get a ton of public respect, you are often viewed as not much more than babysitters, but illogically, after claiming that, people are also down on you for not making their children geniuses. You personally get painted with all of the failings that exist in our school systems while you spend your own money, your own hours and much of yourself trying to move your students forward in life.

It doesn’t get much better at the college level. College professors are often viewed as not working very hard, accused of living in ivory towers or being eggheads. The single most frequent quote about teachers is those who can do, those who can’t teach. So it’s not like respect and appreciation are overflowing for college professors.

Administrators may have it worst of all. At best, both within and without of education we are seen an impediment to education. For teachers who become administrators, almost all administrators were former teachers, you get accused of going over to the dark side for making the switch to administration. I can’t even count the times I’ve heard faculty members or the public complain about how the reason that education is so underfunded is because all of the money goes to pay for too many high paid administrators who do nothing instead of student resources or faculty pay.

At every level in education regardless of position you deal with lots of training requirements and rules. We are all mandatory reporters. There is no one who has worked in education for very long who can’t tell you heart breaking stories of students they have worked with and tried to help. Myself, over my career I’ve lost students back to many bad living situations, one I think of often who had to drop out of school to join the family drug business. I’ve had situations where students have told me about abuse, reported incidences of rape and violence. I’ve taken students to their first AA meeting. Education honestly, is not for the faint of heart.

So why do we do it? It’s a pretty easy answer. There may be nothing more satisfying in a job then watching that light bulb moment in a classroom. That incredibly special moment when a student who has been struggling with a concept suddenly puts it all together and their face lights up with understanding and knowledge. There are so many small moments when a student tells you you’ve helped them learn, change or grow. So amazing when they come back years later and tell you how much you meant to them and their lives.

One of the hard things about becoming an administrator is that as you take a step further away from students, you lose a lot of that contact and that payoff for the work that you do. Now people will tell you that you have to look at things differently, that the work you do supports all of the teachers and therefore you share in all of the rewards. That’s technically accurate, but I’m not quite mature enough for that to count. It’s just not the same as having students come back and thank you. Don’t get me wrong, it still happens, not as often but it does, and it happened this week.

I went into one of the few on ground classes that we still have during COVID times to do my beginning of the semester chat with the students. After the presentation I was leaving and a student followed me out of the class. At first I didn’t recognize him due to the mask, but he quickly reminded of who he was. He was a student who came to me last year. He was in a tough place, he’d moved to the west coast and was far away from his family. His niece back east had just been killed. He was struggling with staying here and now he was dealing with an issue with one of his instructors who he felt was treating him disrespectfully. I listened to him and set a meeting for the three of us. It was a good meeting, the student was honest, the instructor listened and seemed open to what was being said. I never heard anything, which typically means things had mitigated enough for things to work. But the student told me it had been more than that. My instructor had done a phenomenal job of listening and changing his behavior. The student due to that, decided to stick things out and made it through the semester.

Since then he’s completed his associates degree, and will be moving on to an engineering program. He told me today that he had decided to stay here, “where his opportunity was,” instead of heading back east because of how we had treated him. He told me with incredibly sincerity that he thought I had done a magnificent job dealing with the issue, that his instructor had been amazing. He thanked me and told me, that we likely saved his life. The in violation of all the COVID rules I’d just finished discussing, he hugged me. I laughed and told him we weren’t supposed to do that, but I understood, sometimes humanity is more important than safety.

This is why we do this, moments like this, but more than that, to actually have this type of impact in someone’s life is an honor and a privilege.

This also hit close to home, Columbia-Greene Community College lives on a short list of the things that I consider to have similarly saved my life when I crashed and burned as a young man. At the point in my life when I was an addict, an alcoholic and a failure, at a time when I was wallowing in what was likely a clinical level of depression. The registrar, I believe her name was Barbara, bent the rules and allowed me to be a student in the fall of 1984. It was my first success, my first step to the life I have today. So I work in community college to pay that debt forward, this week I got some confirmation I’m doing just that, and that’s why I do what I do. ~ Michael “Rev” Kane

Posted in personal happiness | 5 Comments

Simplest Formula for Happiness

Posted on September 6, 2020 by Michael Kane

Simplest Formula for Happiness

The most simple things can bring the greatest happiness ~ Izabella Scorupco

Originally posted February, 2019

We of course talk a lot about it, this is The Ministry of Happiness after all. I try in these posts to help us all delve into the depths of the elements of our lives that can help us bring happiness into our lives. Occasionally however, it’s good to return to the core ideas, to the simplest things that we can do to bring ourselves happiness. I do a lot of reading about happiness and these ideas seem to be at the absolute core of whatever everyone agrees are the things we can control in terms of our own happiness.

There are of course things we can’t control, our very genetic makeup which can control how easily or deeply we can become depressed. Our circumstances at birth and in our early life are also out of our control and experts typically say that these things account for about 60% of our happiness. But we control about 40% and the following things are primarily how we do that.

Relationships

Find joy in everything you choose to do. Every job, relationship, home… it’s your responsibility to love it, or change it. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Who we spend time with has a tremendous impact on our happiness, we have talked about this many times before and I understand how hard it is to push people out of your circle who diminish your happiness but you must do this whenever possible. We often underestimate how possible it is for us to do this. So whenever possible surround yourself with happy, supportive and caring people who truly care for you.

Gratitude

Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. ~ Marcel Proust

I had a great reminder of this today in talking with my 89-year-old Granny, after gently complaining about some things she stopped and said, I count my blessings, I’ve probably had more than I deserve in this life. Beautiful wisdom there and what she said probably goes for most of us, if we count our blessings, if we are grateful for what we have and were to tally it up, I think we’d all find we have far more than we deserve. Being grateful does many things for us it solidifies and strengthens are relationships and research also shows us that it can be healthy for us helping to reduce stress.

Mindfulness

Be happy in the moment, that’s enough. Each moment is all we need, not more. ~ Mother Teresa

One of the absolute best things we can do to make ourselves happier is to become more present in our lives, more mindful. To focus intently upon the here and now, the person or people immediately in front of us makes all of our experiences and interactions richer. This also helps us be more grateful for our lives, allows us to be focused and less distracted.

Kindness and Giving

A warm smile is the universal language of kindness ~ William Arther Ward

We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give ~ Winston Churchill

When we are kind to others, help others, it makes us happier, maybe in that sense it’s not a purely selfish act, but if you can help others and by doing so help yourself I’d say that’s a pretty good deal. There are formal and larger ways to help people but I think sometimes the smaller acts are equally as powerful. One little thing I do at the college I work at is to occasionally buy a student lunch. Usually I do this when I’m in line at the cafeteria and someone comes up a little short, or their credit card is working or for some reason it just seems like they are having a tough day. Doing it makes me feel good and always really surprises the students, a little kindness and giving goes a long way. One of the easiest ways to be kind to people is to just smile at them, it will confuse some people, but a smile as we’ve talked about before, makes people feel good.

Purpose

Every person has a longing to be significant; to make a contribution; to be a part of something noble and purposeful. ~ John C. Maxwell

This may be the most important and hardest component of being happy. Finding a purpose in life is hugely important to making us feel like our life is worth something and that we are worthy of happiness. Some people find this purpose in love and marriage, others in their children, but one place where many of us struggle is in our work. For many of us we work at the job we are at because we have to, we all have bills to pay, mouths to feed. But is important to our self-worth and therefore our happiness that we find that purpose if not purely in our job, at least in some component of what we do for a living.

So my friends find those great relationships, count our blessings, be mindful of each precious moment of our life, be kind and giving and lead a purpose driven life. In return you may find yourself having many happy days ~ Rev Kane

Posted in personal happiness | Tagged giving, gratitude, happiness, happy, kindness, life, mindfulness, purpose, relationships | 3 Comments

Quotes about Inspiration & Happiness

Posted on September 6, 2020 by Michael Kane

Quotes about Inspiration & Happiness

The holidays are a very stressful time for everyone and an exceptionally hard time for some. So, until the New Year I’ll be posting a Holiday Happiness post each day to try help folks out who are struggling. As always you can reach out to me at Happinesskane@aol.com for a kind word or someone to listen. ~ Rev Kane

So tonight a huge collection of quotes full of wisdom and advice on how to be inspired to be a happier person. Has to be a few hundred total, enjoy and have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane

75 Inspirational quotes on life and happiness

More inspirational quotes

Quotes about Happiness, Gratitude & Kindness

Random Happiness: Happiness Quotes

Happiness Quotes

Inspirational Quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh

Posted in Holiday Happiness | Tagged depression, gratitude, happiness, holidays, inspiration, kindness, quotes, thich nhat hanh, wisdom | 4 Comments

My Favorite Appalachian Trail Photos of 2015

Posted on September 5, 2020 by Michael Kane

My Favorite Appalachian Trail Photos of 2015

Today a tour back through all of my AT photos from 2015. Enjoy, and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

Originally published in January, 2016.

Sometimes you get real hungry on the trail

Section hiker – Hotfoot!

Backtrack and I at the end of one of early days on the trail

The green tunnel in PA

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Brassie Brook Shelter

Getting fierce next to his first white blaze

Pausing in front of a pretty stream on our last day!

Reuniting in VT with hikers I met on the first day.

The boys arriving at Amicalola

Rev Kane on his arrival at Amicalola Falls State Park

Beaver Pond on the trail

I’ve seen much worse that this on other hikers. It’s the toe underneath not the nail that’s black. Eventually the tip of my toe shriveled up and fell off.

Some of my early and lovely calluses

Dawn at 5000 feet

The AARP gang with our host Lumpy on the left at Standing Bear

I promised I’d leave him anonymous, but this is hiking bliss on top of Blood Mountain

The youngest hiker, Olivia and her mom. She’s done 300 miles on the AT and she can’t even walk yet.

Two adorable section hikers I met in the Shenandoah

Me and Mao at a shelter in the SNP

Strawberries for lunch

Jedi and Shaggy relaxing

The first two thru-hikers I met, traveling on the train to Atlanta

Mad Hatter heading back to the trail

Petri and Ducky at Springer Mountain

Rev with Hercules aka Vortex

Rev Kane with fellow hiker and vet Mau.

Modeling at the Shenandoah National Park AT exhibit

Modeling the bear pole

Rev Kane with some of his trail family

Rev Kane on his first day on the Appalachian Trail

Me and Mighty Mouse

You all ROCK!!!

Safely on the porch at Mountain Harbour B&B

The crew enjoying the day

Miss Hattie

Queen Diva at the Hiker’s Ridge Ministry.

AT markers on Main Street in Hot Springs

Lovely Tie at Laughing Heart Hostel

At Hemlock Hollow

Lumpy’s predecessor at Standing Bear, Rocket Man

The AARP gang with our host Lumpy on the left at Standing Bear

Awesome, Backtrack, Rev Kan, and the Kingfisher

Photo by Shaggy Hobo

My air mattress savior

Rev Kane on Rocky Top

Photo by Shaggy Hobo

Me and Cliffhanger

Me and the Mad Hatter

Backtrack, Shaggy Hobo and Rev Kane

Me and Tough Cookie (she’s back on the trail after appendicitis surgery 6 weeks ago)

Damn Yankee (grew up 20 minutes from me in NY) and Backtrack

Two utterly amazing and interesting folks, Patches and Airborne.

The AARP gang, me, Backtrack, Kingfisher and Awesome

The NC/GA Border

First rough night on the AT

My first night on the trail

Happiness is love and unconventional wisdom

Posted on September 4, 2020 by Michael Kane

Happiness is love and unconventional wisdom

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. ~ Lao Tzu

Originally posted January, 2014

So tonight friends let’s talk about love. Recently I saw something that I found quite interesting it was a piece discussing the difference between healthy and unhealthy love.

This was one of those brief pieces that tells us that healthy love is adult love, the kind of mature, in control and responsible love that you grow into like an old pair of shoes, dependable and comfortable. They use the example of love like a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup on a rainy day. Now that is a beautiful dose of conventional wisdom and if you are unique just like everyone else it will probably fit you like Cinderella’s proverbial slipper.

If you read our site closely you’ll see that this is The Church of Abnormal Acceptance and its Ministry of Happiness. The name of the church was chosen carefully, we offer acceptance, over the internet as part of our services, the idea that no matter who you are, what you’re into we don’t care. We only care about helping you be a happier person. Why you might ask would we be so accepting? In a word experience, in my time here on Earth I have noticed that average doesn’t exist, we’re all in our own way freaks in one way or another. Hell some of us in three or four ways. This observation is never as sharp as it is on the playa at the Burning Man Festival. The beauty of Burning Man is that it provides a dissolution of normal, it no longer exists and the test is quite simple. At Burning Man if you slowly rotate 360 degrees carefully observing all you see, I assure you, you will never be the biggest freak. It drives home the idea that we’re all freaks and as such we had better be accepting of freaks, because just like the freaks we see, the freak we are needs to be loved and accepted for who we are inside and out.

So throw conventional wisdom on love, on acceptance, hell on most things out the window. I’ll come back to the piece I referenced on healthy and unhealthy love. Healthy, adult, mature, grilled cheese love might work for you; it might be exactly what you need in your life to be utterly fulfilled and happy. However the freak in me needs a little more unhealthy love in his life, some jalapenos on his grilled cheese, some fresh basil and garlic in his tomato soup. They described unhealthy love as being powerless with no boundaries, like a drug. Well I like a little excitement in my love, a little insanity, maybe it’s not healthy, but neither are chocolate chip cookies and ice cream but they make me happy. So find out what you need to be happy, and don’t let anyone else tell you it’s not what you need, find it, get it and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

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