The other week as I was writing about finding balance in my life I got to thinking about happiness. I remembered way (ok, way, way) back when I was in college. In those days I can remember that my buddies and I would often check in and ask each other if we were happy. Somehow we had decided that happiness was the goal. Then later I got to reading Buddhist stuff and concluded that happiness is more sanely a byproduct of a life well lived. Maybe so, probably so, but as I read somewhere recently, if you are dearly dedicated to the truth, be open to frequently recognizing that you are wrong! So, happiness, goal or by product or something else entirely? I guess I better admit, I’m not so sure anymore. I do know that most days I have more than a few moments of happiness, sometimes the out and out blissful kind of happiness, sometimes the belly laugh kind of happiness, more often a quiet ineffable calm happiness. And I’m here to tell you they are all kind of nice. Oh, and they are all really most noticeable it contrast with other feelings. But that is another blog.

On happiness, I came across this little story in Wisdom Stories to live by at https://philipchircop.wordpress.com/  hope you enjoy it. Hope it brings you a few moments of happiness….

STOP CHASING YOUR TAIL

A big cat saw a little cat chasing its tail and asked, “Why are you chasing your tail so?”

Said the kitten, “I have learned that the best thing for a cat is happiness, and that happiness is in my tail. Therefore, I am chasing it: and when I catch it, I shall have happiness.”

Said the old cat, “My son, I, too, have paid attention to the problems of the universe. I too, have judged that happiness is in my tail But, I have noticed that whenever I chase after it, it keeps running away from me, and when I go about my business, it just seems to come after me wherever I go.”

Source | From C.L. James, “On Happiness,”
in Caesar Johnson, To See a World in a Grain of Sand
(Norwalk, Conn.: The C.B. Gibson Co., 1972)