Bud wasn’t happy. He had some good times, but he was often disgruntled and irritable. He wanted to be happy and he tried many things that he hoped would make him happy, but nothing seemed to work. One day, he noticed the man who tended his parents’ yard smiling and humming a song to himself as he worked. He had seen this man before and he always seemed to be happy. They had talked briefly before, so Bud asked him if he was happy.
The gardener said, “Sure I’m happy!”
Bud asked him, “Are you always happy?”
The man said, “I’m not always happy, but I am most of the time.”
“How do you do that?” Bud asked.
“I enjoy what I do.”
“I can see that. It’s nice being out in the sun working with plants. What about when it’s cold and wet and your back aches?”
“When it’s like that, I choose to enjoy it.”
“You choose to enjoy it? What do you mean?”
“I figure I’m going to be doing this anyway, even if it’s uncomfortable, so I might as well enjoy it. There is always some part of an experience you can enjoy, even if it is just surviving it.”
Bud was having a little trouble digesting this and he decided to push. He said, “I know you lost your mother a couple of years ago. How did you handle that? Were you happy then?”
“I wasn’t happy to lose her. Nobody wants that, but we all know it’s likely were going to lose our parents. I decided that if I had to experience that, I’d do it the best way I could. I tried to be there for her. We had some nice moments before she died that we wouldn’t have had any other way. Grieving is painful. I wanted to do it cleanly. So it was very sad for me to lose Mamma, but there was a kind of joy in it too. Happy, sad, grief, joy. It’s all mixed up together. “
After that, Bud talked with the gardener whenever he came over to work on the yard. Sometimes he would work along with him. At first he didn’t like the exertion, the dirtiness, the sweating, but he practiced what the gardener taught him. He practiced choosing to enjoy what he was doing. Then he took that approach to everything he did. As he began a new experience, he told himself, “I’m going to enjoy this.” He found that it didn’t matter whether the event was pleasurable or not, he could set his course on enjoyment or perhaps adventure, and he’d find it less painful than it would have been otherwise, and much more of the time he was enjoying his life.
Eventually, Bud wrote down what he had learned from his friend the gardener:
- My key to happiness: Do what I enjoy and enjoy what I do, whether I do it for fun or for necessity.
- The trick is to learn how to enjoy even what is not innately enjoyable.
- In order to do that, I need to jettison worry, resentment, anger and any other negative emotions that color my experience.
- I need to be able to relax. Willingness to tolerate discomfort without generating negative emotion helps, and being able to relax is an aid to that.
- I need to be able to choose where to place my attention. The practice of that is meditation. The outcome of it is mindfulness.
- I favor the emotions of gratitude, and compassion. Friendliness will arise from these. If I’m not friendly, I won’t be happy.
- I foster equanimity in myself. I will not be overly attached to outcomes. I will not take things personally that aren’t, and I will take lightly those that are.
- A well developed sense of curiosity, humor and play are key. Minimal self-consciousness helps.
Bud was not a natural gardener, so he didn’t try to become one like his older friend. But he became more aware of the activities that he did enjoy more than others. As he pursued these, he found his way. When he had to do things that he would rather not do, he decided to make the best of them. He had learned from his friend that shoveling manure could be a joyful experience when one intends it to be, and after that he could bring joy into most any situation.
© 2010 Tom Barrett