The Nature of Happiness

Today I feel blissfully happy. This sun is shining, there is no wind and having just scrambled up the side of my local volcanic cone and back down again after viewing the stunning view from the top, I still have oodles of energy to spare. I've sanded down my front steps and primed them ready for painting and tugged a few weeds from my garden.

The reality is I am unemployed and don't have as much financial security that I might have expected at this stage of my life. I do need to earn a living but having had periods of unemployment post redundancies where the job search hung over my life like the sword of Damocles, I don't want to repeat this pattern. I am blissfully going with the flow as life presents itself, unsure what my next step will be.

So right now there is no plan beyond getting as much out of each day as I can. I am happy, today, here, now. I know happiness isn't a static state and it can evaporate in an instant. I know that because I have known great unhappiness, depression and anxiety. 

What do you think? Am I naive, burying my head in the sand and live to rue the day I was so careless about my future, or am I on track to an exciting and unknown destination life has in store for me?

Isabel

Who Wants to Live Forever?

How often do we hear the saying “Life isn't a dress rehearsal, it's the here and now”? 
As I sail into my third age I have been confronted with the realisation that life is finite.  How many more years are ahead of me, fifteen like my late mother, twenty five at the most?  While this sounds pessimistic I tell myself that I being realistic. Of course in tandem with the sensible part of me acknowledging this I am also in total denial. While writing this, I was ambushed by lyrics of the Freddie Mercury song popping into my mind "Who wants to live forever when love must die? Who waits forever anyway?"

Good point.  The clock is ticking, and without realising it our whole lives up until this point have been the dress rehearsal for when we grew up. Well in case you didn't notice we are the grown ups so we'd better settle for making the most of the here and now.

Let's face it; there are insidious and niggling physical reminders that we may not be as young as feel on the inside.  But the truth is most of us baby boomers feel much the same as when we were 20, 35 or even 45, only happier, with less angst and if we are lucky, with little or no mortgage.  We still have hope, though that is rather nebulous as to what we are hoping for but it probably includes expectations of good health for our remaining years with the same for our life partner.  Our hopes are likely to include being in a comfortable situation financially.   And finally, if single, we are most definitely not ready to give up on finding love, as the number of baby boomers on online dating sites attest.