Have a nice day, fucker!
YAY, Friday is here, and with it comes another fun filled entry in my Prompt the Squirrel series where I’m taking your ideas and running in all kinds of crazy directions with them. If you haven’t sent me one yet, feel free to deposit your two cents here… though I fear everyone who wants to play has already done so, as I haven’t received a new idea in several weeks. That’s OK, I’m not going to break down and cry because most of you just want to sit on the sidelines and shake your pompons…
I’ll let Taylor Raccoon shed the tears for me instead.
Smack dab in the middle of my latest Friday series, I’m finally going to get around to responding to the very first prompt I received when I announced this new TGIF venture in April, and that came from longtime friend of The Nest Merby, who not only has her own blog for personal stuff, but also a cool side blog looking back at funny retro things. And you know how much I love a little retro silliness…
A round of Zimas for everyone!
Merby’s prompt was short but sweet…
The secrets to happiness.
Wow… this is one of those eternally mind boggling questions akin to what women want and who Carly Simon thought was so vain. I’m not sure I have the insight on how to achieve happiness that you could normally only get from some old man who spends his entire miserable life stuck in a yoga position atop a mountain, but for Merby, I will certainly try…
Go away squirrel. I only climbed up here to plug up this volcano.
Generally, I would be considered to be a happy person. I think that overall emotional state reflects in the content of my blog, which is rarely dank, dark and depressing… unless you happen to be a certain possum. Happiness is a state of mind that can only be achieved by the person who wishes to attain it. Nobody or nothing can force you to be either happy or unhappy, it is very much a feeling of choice. However, either not enough people realize this, or they allow the people and events around them to control their enjoyment of life. Why do people allow things completely outside of their control to effect their emotional state of being?
Damn, ES. Crack a smile, won’tcha?
That’s not to say happiness is something that should be attainable at all times. I get plenty sad and discouraged and even upset over stupid things… sometimes even little things, that decide to drop a deuce on my life. However, I’m usually able to ward off the sads with a healthy dose of distraction, and I’m pretty adept at channeling my anger and not allowing it to well up inside of me when those irritating results of human stupidity try to keep me from getting my smile on. One time at work, I got so damn frustrated and upset over a certain situation that, in full view of several of my co-workers, I picked up a Renuzit cone that had rolled out its box and off the pallet I was trying to pull off a truck (which was just the straw that broke this squirrel’s back that night), and threw a fastball against a stack of Pepsi cases… exploding that fucker all over the place.
It never stood a chance.
The result of my shocking action was that it made me feel better, cut loose some tension from my workmates (one of whom I recall was both awed and impressed at my brash, heat of the moment hissy fit), and in the end only cost Mecca about 97 cents… which I don’t think our billionaire owners will miss. I like to deal with anything that is disturbing my groove promptly, which may look terrible in the short run, but is often the most productive and beneficial result in the long run.
This is what tends to happen to those who don’t choose to throw Renuzits.
Nobody should be happy all the time. People who are too cheerful and overly perky are often the ones that bring out the worst in us, and make it hard for us to maintain our own happiness when constantly assaulted by glee overload. George Carlin warned us about people who are “more than happy,” and nobody wants to end up looking like Enzyte’s Smiling Bob.
Or this more than happy squirrel.
And while I can’t offer real advice to those who have more on their plate of life than The Fats Boys have on their plate from Old Country Buffet, I can share one secret that has allowed me to stay much happier than those around me probably think I should be…
Contentment.
Accepting and finding the lemonade in what the world has handed you can fetch an awful lot of happiness that may not seem present on the surface. I have learned to like a job well below what it seems I should be doing, and that most people would hate… but which with some patience has also turned into a job I can make a real living at. I have happily adapted to a life of relative loneliness due to my unwillingness and inability to mingle and find real world friends, largely through the much more accessible social world of the internet. Out in the garage is my car of almost 15 years that most people would be embarrassed to own, that I instead drive with pride and a smile on my face.
The car only a cheap bastard could love.
I live and breathe by the motto “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” While this might cost me the occasional two in the bush, why take the risk of losing the bird in the hand that has already proven to be my bluebird of happiness? This goes against the conventional wisdom from bullshit fairy tales that say everyone should “chase their dreams,” even through repeated failure… but hanging myself out on that limb never has and never will bring me happiness. Until it’s broken, I will always forgo the greener grass to keep my contentment.
There’s too much of this shit hidden on the other side of the proverbial fence…
So in conclusion, I would say the secret to happiness as I know it is to merely accept the hand you’ve been dealt and find ways to make it work for you. Easier said than done, I know, and knowing the circumstances of the blogger who sent me thing prompt, an even tougher sell. But it’s the best I’ve got.
And if nothing else, if this doesn’t make you happy for at least a brief moment, please just do us all a favor and lock yourself inside a cellar that doesn’t have a key…
You can’t resist me!
Thank you for the excellent prompt of happiness, Merbs! I’ll be back next Friday to talk about more stuff you want me to talk about…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
I agree it’s easier said than done… but it is a way… and even when this way lis bumpy road :o)
In the road of life, one must try their best to enjoy every spine shattering bump along the way.
Excellent advice and something that I am working on…I also enjoy throwing things sometimes, but never an air freshener. I bet that shit made work smell great for awhile. 🙂
I’m almost numb to the effect of air fresheners since I’m in the aisle so often, but I guess it would have depended on which scent it was (I don’t recall). If it was Super Odor Killer… that shit kinda reeks in large doses…
No running out of prompts! Once you’re through what you have, are all the loyal readers that did their duty the first time allowed to send another one for Round Two?
I think I’ll do Round Two around the same time next year…. or maybe a bit earlier or later depending on where my future Friday projects take me. Not that I know where I’m going with my next Friday series yet…
This is my favourite quote about life and lemons/lemonade: “When life gives you lemons? Don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! GET MAD! ‘I don’t want your damn lemons! What am I supposed to do with these?!’ Demand to see life’s manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am?! I’m the man who’s going to burn your house down! With the lemons! I’m going to get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!” Cave Johnson, Portal 2
Happy Weekend!
Lemon grenades are about as effective as Renuzit bombs!
Sage words!
“…longtime friend of The Nest Merby” – sounds like we should have a cool “Friend of the Nest” badge…
I’ll get ES to work on those right away… he’s gotten a lot of advice from Mr. Applewhite on how to start up a cult.
Yeah, “Cult of the Squirrel” has a nice ring to it.
I wonder about the perky, bushy-tailed humanoids who are sure all of life’s little problems (and for them, apparently, there are no BIG problems) can be solved by a bright smile and a “can do” attitude. Why do I want to hit them with a stick? Is it because they are the ones who assure terminal cancer patients that “God never gives you more than you can handle?” Or because they can’t even imagine bumping into a wall that can’t be climbed or an obstacle that can’t be overcome. Both, maybe.
My granddaughter wrote in her year book “Life isn’t about avoiding the storms … it’s about learning to dance in the rain.” I think I’ve slightly misquoted it, but I thought it showed remarkable commonsense in one so young.
We have one of those extremely perky and chipper people at work… who oddly enough, is also extremely rude. It’s an odd combination… but when she tells you hello for the tenth time in the last hour, and you don’t respond in 0.0000000003 seconds, she immediately goes into a diatribe about she must just be talking to herself. Yes, dear… yes you are…
I would dance out in the rain if it weren’t for my fear of getting struck by lightning. It would be my luck too…
I love your outlook on life and happiness! Contentment with what I have is something I’ve cultivated over the years but I think I need to order a pallet of Renuzit to throw before I get in my car angry or go out in public angry. Wednesday I may have muttered something like, “and now there’s a cluster fuck inside the doorway – perfect!” before pushing my shopping cart into high gear to pass a group of confused-looking old people who were blocking the entrance. Not cool of me. I hate being that person but I tend to turn into a bratty toddler when feeling too many pressures. One key to my happiness is being allowed to move at a leisurely pace with plenty of time to stop to smell the roses and watch the squirrels!
Oh how I wish I could mutter things about the customers who make things so difficult for me. I do make mockingly screwed up faces once I get far enough out of the range of their eyesight. which is my way of passively throwing a Renuzit at them.
This post made me happy. 🙂
I couldn’t have done it without the help of my squirrels!
We have similar philosophies. I refuse to get down (for long) and never, ever allow self pity to get a strong hold. If I catch myself whining about something being less than perfect I say “think of 50 reasons to be grateful!” Sort of like emotional pushups. 😀 I have never mastered physical pushups. Life is sweet. ❤
I can’t do a real pushup either, so I’ll have to give these mental ones a try sometime! I find my drawing to be great stress relief therapy!
I get where you’re coming from, I really do. I drive an older vehicle, I live in the basement of my mom’s house, I could make way more money working a corporate gig but I refuse… This is my happiness. No one can define what can or should make another person happy. And if they say they can, they’re selling what you don’t want.
Exactly! This is why those overpaid, overdressed, overperky motivational speakers need to go stick their sunshine where it don’t….
I’ll get the duck tape, you bring the shovel. 😀
Worse than the overly-cheerful are the ones who go around telling you “smile!”
The one time one particular Sister did that to me, I had been smiling, just not visibly. Nothing ruins a good mood more quickly than someone telling you that you should be smiling.
The only thing more important than smiling is minding one’s own business. I might have smiled while I told her that… 😉
I’ll remember that for the next time!