Quote of the Day 1/15/14

To everything there is a season,
a time for every purpose under the sun.
A time to be born and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill and a time to heal ...
a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance ...
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to lose and a time to seek;
a time to rend and a time to sew;
a time to keep silent and a time to speak;
a time to love and a time to hate;
a time for war and a time for peace.

[Book of Ecclesiastes]

kairos.

Today's sunrise

This morning I woke up to watch the sun rise over the Gulf of Mexico and as I watched the rays begin to pierce the gray clouds, bringing to light the crystal blue water and ivory sandy beach, I couldn’t help but think of how all is truly made beautiful in due time.

The natural world we live in parallels the lives we live. There is a season and time for everything. We can't pick strawberries in January and we don't wear Ugg boots in August. (Although California girls seem to have made an excuse for this one.) There are things we reserve for a particular timing and season. We decorate Christmas trees during the Christmas season and we sing happy birthday on an actual birth date. We reserve extravagant celebrations for significant events. We wear black to a funeral and don’t wear white to someone’s wedding. We eat dessert after dinner and don’t drink coffee after brushing our teeth. While adhering too much to formality and rules can run the risk of making things just a formality, I think we can all acknowledge that saving certain traditions and rules makes those moments those moments. The reason they are wonderful are because they are saved and experienced in their own due time.

__(insert suggestions here)___

In an attempt to name this post appropriately, I found myself on Google quest, searching through dictionaries, posts and blogs. When the dictionaries failed me, I turned to good old trusted Wikipedia. 

Originally this post was titled “content” but then Wikipedia defined bliss as: “Bliss is an emotional state that is characterized by perfect happiness (feelings of enjoyment, pleasure, and satisfaction,” I couldn’t help overlook the words “perfect happiness.” This led me to attempting to figure out what exactly “perfect happiness” means.

This led me on another Google search, to find out what the 1037345836430480 Google users around the world believe perfect happiness is. 

Let’s just say I found answers from one extreme side of the spectrum to the other. Infamous Yahoo! Questions had a user who posted the question “How to acquire perfect happiness?” and which the best answer chosen by the voters was “drugs or brain damage…. Happiness is a mish-mash of emotions, and it is loosely defined by its symptoms.” 

Google provided me with 41 million (to be exact) pages of results and skimming some of the pages, words such as nature, family, good book, house stood out, there were also debates of “god exists” and “no he doesn’t.” 

Even the Wall Street Journal had an opinion on the matter and  put a monetary value in the mix and reported that “the perfect salary for happiness is $75,000.”

Now I don’t know how happiness can be found through money or books or trees but I do know that no matter who you are, where you live and what you do, all you want at the end of the happy is to be happy and you want to be the real kind of happy. 

Perfectly Happy. 

Always Happy. 

Am I right....? 

Quote of the Day 12/1/11

"Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for."       [Joseph Addison]