Posted on August 19, 2018 by joshmitteldorf
- Lots of truisms don't have to be repeated but there is one that has got to be,
- Which is that it is much nicer to be happy than it is not to be,
- And I shall even add to it by stating unequivocally and without restraint
- That you are much happier when you are happy than when you ain't.
- Some people are just naturally Pollyanna,
- While others call for sugar and cream and strawberries on their manna.
- Now, I think we all ought to say a fig for the happiness that comes of thinking helpful thoughts and searching your soul,
- The most exciting happiness is the happiness generated by forces beyond your control,
- Because if you just depend on your helpful thoughts for your happiness and would just as soon drink buttermilk as champagne, and if mink is no better than lapin to you,
- Why you don't even deserve to have anything nice and exciting happen to you.
- If you are really Master of your Fate,
- It shouldn't make any difference to you whether Cleopatra or the Bearded Lady is your mate,
- So I hold no brief for the kind of happiness or the kind of unhappiness that some people constantly carry around in their breast,
- Because that kind of happiness simply consists of being resigned to the worst just as that kind of unhappiness consists of being resentful of the best.
- No, there is only one kind of happiness that I take the stump for,
- Which is the kind that comes when something so wonderful falls in your lap that joy is what you jump for,
- Something not of your own doing,
- When the blue sky opens and out pops a refund from the Government or an invitation to a terrapin dinner or an unhoped-for Yes from the lovely creature you have been disconsolately wooing.
- And obviously such miracles don't happen every day,
- But here's hoping they may,
- Because then everybody would be happy except the people who pride themselves on creating their own happiness who as soon as they saw everybody who didn't create their own happiness happy they would probably grieve over sharing their own heretofore private sublimity,
- A condition which I could face with equanimity.
-- The Anatomy of Happiness
Ogden Nash was born this day in 1902
