Totally Out of Context
Today I tell my students we will work together to revise their essays. To revise means “to see again.” When we see our writing “again,” we gain a fresh look, from a new perspective, and recalibrate what’s not working. One method of revision involves taking writing out of context and re-reading it in a […]
The Pure and Simple Happiness We Can Afford
At 7:45 AM, I push my daughter (the one who has the bad day mantra) on her tree swing. There’s a green chair next to me because the girls like to take a flying leap off of it, throw their legs around the swing, and see how high they can get. I can’t keep her […]
How I Detangle My Life
Before church this morning, I participate in a daily morning ritual with my daughters: I detangle their hair. This is not fun ever. We employ various products, special brushes, and gentle mother-strokes to get their hair orderly and smooth. They used to cry and shout about this. Now, they resign themselves to it, clenching their […]
What’s Wrong with This Picture?
As someone who–for nearly a decade–was an expert in unhappiness, I’m learning what makes living with flair so important. At our worst, we become deeply cynical and disillusioned with our own lives. Everything’s wrong. Nothing’s working. We want to abandon ship and find new lives somewhere else. We become desperate for change, desperate to […]
Google Street View and Happiness
Sometimes when I’m missing certain places, I’ll visit them using Google Street View. I can walk down childhood roads, visit old neighborhoods, observe favorite restaurants or city streets, or spy on my own house–all thanks to Google’s Street View. And sometimes, when I’m imagining what life must be like in a different city, I’ll visit […]
What We’ve Known For a Long Time
I read an article on the bus yesterday that recounts the results of a number of happiness studies. Researchers want to know if happiness is something we experience or something we think. I love reading articles like this. Once again, research proves that when we think about our experiences we can put the day in […]
How to Live in Luxury
Luxurious or lavish things do not need to be expensive. I’m learning that luxury can be sought in the right mindset. There’s something biblical about luxury properly applied. But, by definition, luxurious implies indulgent, excessively expensive, and unnecessary. Even the word seems excessive. The way it sounds seems. . . luxurious. The word connotes an […]
The Secret Community You Might Want to Join
This morning, at 5:30 AM, I discovered the secret community of Those Who Rise Early. I can’t believe this world exists. There I am, alarm going off, pulling on work-out clothes and stumbling to the driveway, when all of a sudden, I look around. At the unnatural hour of 5:30 AM, there are actual people […]
Why Bother with Christianity?
If you can be happy without Jesus, why bother? I’ve been thinking about this lately. I’ve been thinking about all the happiness blogs people have sent my way. It seems that all over the world, folks find legitimate forms of happiness apart from knowing God. I know what this feels like. I know that when […]
A Stranger Tells Me His Secret
Many of my flair moments in the past 90 days occurred during conversations with strangers: the tired woman at the grocery store, the neighborhood boy, the hard-working Amish man, the precious waitress who gave my daughter a bad day mantra, the mean people at the drive-thru, that wonderful unknown woman who gave me the complement […]