Is Happiness a Cliche?

Mar 21, 2024

Sustainable Practices for Environmental Leaders

Is Happiness a Cliché?

#Are you happy? Why do people seem to dismiss happiness, as if it was superficial? Is it because people don’t believe in it? Ever since the Covid epidemic, depression among all age groups has skyrocketed. Do people feel that happiness is unobtainable?

Naomi Shihab Nye wrote a lovely poem where she shares her sentiments about what happiness is:

So Much Happiness by Naomi Shihab Nye

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.
With sadness there is something to rub against,
a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.
When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,
something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.

But happiness floats.
It doesn’t need you to hold it down.
It doesn’t need anything.
Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,
and disappears when it wants to.
You are happy either way.
Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house
and now live over a quarry of noise and dust
cannot make you unhappy.
Everything has a life of its own,
it too could wake up filled with possibilities
of coffee cake and ripe peaches,
and love even the floor which needs to be swept,
the soiled linens and scratched records . . .

Since there is no place large enough
to contain so much happiness,
you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
and in that way, be known.

#happiness#somuchhappiness#naomishihabnye#cliche

 

 

Sacred Earth Science helps environmental stewards master conscious leadership skills by learning and applying innovative tools and techniques so they can manage demanding workloads, reduce stress, boost their productivity, and achieve work-life balance. Our specialized trainings and Next Level Coaching integrate eastern, western and indigenous science and help clients transform the way they work. 

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