About 20 years ago, several of us were in a friendly debate as to what constitutes a happy life. Many comments related to having sufficient resources, being self-determinate, readily accessing fun, and several other ideas ranging from the base to the spiritual.
As most moot exercises go, broad agreement was fleeting, yet – in a flash of Occam’s razor – a perspective emerged from Jerry Graf, a colleague during my Domino’s Pizza days: happiness means one can say “yes” to two simple questions.
Are you living where you want to live?
Are you doing what you want to do?
These are wonderfully grounding questions that can give comforting clarity or challenge one to make a change. Today I remembered these questions and began the process of answering them again. For such simple questions, it’s a tough process to reach a definitive answer. I did, however, challenge myself to at least address the first question this evening.
After parking the truck, I harvested some beans, tomatoes, and peppers from the garden and grabbed the digital camera (fair warning: my photographic skills mirror my ability to golf – you can tell I’m playing, but you wouldn’t want to study my form!). In about fifteen minutes, I encountered some pretty strong arguments that the answer about where I live is a resounding yes:
Looking through the corn at the upper pond 
Memories of seasons past 
An abandoned milking station on the bottom level of the big barn
Ripening peaches 
Queen Anne’s lace growing wild in the Bog
I wish I could take a picture of the peace and calm this farm offers me or digitally share the sweetness of the peaches and tang of the tomatoes. I guess it is only fair to offer an open invitation to my readers to come, relax and laugh. Just bring a dish to pass!
Yes, I do live where I want to live. How about you?
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Please be nice, sit up straight, don't mumble, be kind to animals and your family.