happenings and happiness

It’s been an amazing summer and I haven’t even left this wee island... I feel like it might be coming to an end soon but yet it’s just the beginning of all that’s next, which is also exciting. But the sun is still shining today which makes me think maybe summer is going to hang around for a while longer.

As I sit here typing, I'm realising I’ve kind of missed this wee venting space actually.

For those of you who want an update, I have graduated and for now I’m staying in Belfast. I’m on the hunt for a physio job but actually not too stressed about when that might appear. In the meantime, I’m starting work soon in a wee nursing home that I’ve worked in before. It’ll pay rent, keep me semi-connected to the caring/healthcare world, get me off the dole and keep me sane all of which can only be good things :)

I feel like I’ve seen more of Northern Ireland this summer than ever... random day trips (in between job hunting!) are so much more appealing with Sam and a convertible. Can you tell I’m in a good mood today? I am. For various reasons:
1. Just went for an hour long run (endorphins!) and didn’t die
2. I have a faithful God
3. I have another few weeks to chill, read, run, climb ben nevis & hang out with people until my job starts (blame the police checks...)
4. The sun is shining
5. I’m in love.

See, i’m not sure whether a return to blogging when I’m in this kind of mood will be good for the world. I suppose it’s to balance all those slightly depressed introspective blog/quotes I’ve posted over the last few years :)

Just to fulfil my quote quota for the day...
“There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious. It is too good to waste on jokes.” –CS Lewis, The Last Battle

emotions: positive v negative

I found this Atlantic article on happiness so interesting.... (thankfully the conclusions are mostly not easy pat answers... ie: we're complicated!!) but here's one part of it:

“...positive emotions make us more vulnerable than negative ones. One reason is that they’re future-oriented. Fear and sadness have immediate payoffs—protecting us from attack or attracting resources at times of distress. Gratitude and joy, over time, will yield better health and deeper connections—but in the short term actually put us at risk. That’s because, while negative emotions tend to be insulating, positive emotions expose us to the common elements of rejection and heartbreak.”

It makes me think of two other thoughts:

"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable." CS Lewis

And from Foy Vance’s Two Shades of Hope...
“Now hope deals the hardest blows
Yet I cannot help myself but hope”

For some reason I’m more hopeful these days... I think it’s because I’m just about to enter a new chapter of life, which fits with what the article says about positive emotions being more ‘future-oriented’... but it does sometimes seem wonderful and terrifying in equal proportions.

happiness

one of the economic lecturers at my university has just published a study that found that money can't buy happiness. see a short review of his findings here. kinda feel like saying, really? duh!? but then i guess society goals are often very much focused around increasing income. he doesn't seem to mention religion at all... i wonder if he even included it in the survey? not that i'm saying that all 'religious' people are happy.. but in my psyc of religion module we looked at studies that have found the feeling of 'closeness to god' correlates to happiness (pollner, 1989); having firm beliefs or 'existential certainty' correlated with life-satisfaction (ellison, 1991); increased feelings of meaning and purpose in relation to happiness (chamberlain & zika, 1988). i guess he's coming from a economist perpective not a psychological; although in this case it's related. anyway, just interesting when concrete research points out things that jesus already talked about (matt6.19); life is more than just getting as much money as possible as if that will make you happy...

happiness is one of those funny words anyway. what does it mean? is it different for everyone? can you really measure happiness? hmm... need to get out my psyc books more often :) but they probably only give one side of the story anyway...

here's part of a poem by steve stockman called 'the swing of the pendulum'

Between tradition and change
Between mayhem and bored
Between actions and words
Between destitute and to horde
Between soft mercy and working hard
Between content and never could be
Between the moment and forever
Between blind trust and what you see
Between inferiority and pride
Between your grace and what I confess
I ride the swing of the pendulum
To the balance of happiness.