Dear Readers: Thanks to so many of you for your words of support over the years regarding my column. Some of you have asked, where did you go? I've been finishing a book but am back, ready to produce a steady stream of columns.
"This is the beginning of a New Day," says an anonymous author. "God has given me this day to use as I will. I can waste it or grow in its light and be of service to others. But what I do with this day is important because I have exchanged a day of life for it. When tomorrow comes, today will be gone forever. I hope I will not regret the price I paid for it."
We each, in our lifetime, have only so many hours to spend, and because we can't anticipate our life span, we will never know how much time we have in our "banks." In that sense, every hour is like gold in our hands. And, if we could somehow convert our hours into "money" - that is, something concrete we could literally see and feel with our hands - most of us would be extraordinarily careful regarding how we spent what we had. In fact, we might even budget our "money" ever so carefully so we could treasure every minute of every hour.
But such spending would take concentrated effort. It may be as Storm Jameson has said: "The only way to live is to accept each minute as an unrepeatable miracle, which is exactly what it is - a miracle and unrepeatable."
So how do we begin to value and treasure our hours and minutes - and how do we allocate those hours and minutes to choices that - as we look back - have given our lives profound meaning? Perhaps one way is to savor the happiness we feel each day.
Many times, we are beset with problems that "take us over" - that keep us from finding the little happinesses in our day - or even week or year. Yet, to neglect those little islands of cheer is to never find happiness, for happiness occurs moment by moment in one's life. "No matter what looms ahead, if you can eat today, enjoy the sunlight today, mix good cheer with friends today, enjoy it and bless God for it," reflects Henry Ward Beecher. "Do not look back on hap-piness - or dream of it in the future. You are only sure of today; do not let yourself be cheated out of it."
J. Harvey Howells speaks of a lifelong commitment to savoring daily happiness and begins by telling of a nightly ritual established with his son, but one he had momentarily forgotten. As he bent to kiss his son good-night, his son reminded him of his omission: "You forgot to ask me what was the happiest thing that happened today," said the boy.
"I'm sorry. So I did," responded Howells, sitting down on the end of his son's bed, finally to hear his son's whisper: "Catching that sand eel. My first fish." Howells' son then snuggled into his pillow, murmuring, "Night, Dad," as he drifted off to sleep.
"When and how it started I do not know, but this prayer-like ritual has been my own private blessing since beyond memory," relates Howells. "There is a moment of complete loneliness that comes to everyone every day. When the last good-night has been murmured and the head is on the pillow, the soul is utterly alone with its thoughts. It is then that I ask myself, `What was the happiest thing that happened today?' The waking hours may have been filled with stress and even distress. But no matter what kind of day it has been, there is always a `happiest' thing.
"It's rarely a big thing," he continues. "Mostly it's a fleeting loveliness. Waking to the honk of Can-ada geese on a crisp fall morning . . . an unexpected letter from a friend . . . a cool swim on a broiling day . . . camellias in the snow in an amazed New Orleans.
"There's always something, and as a result I have never had a sleeping pill," Howells finishes. "I doubt if my son will ever need one either - if he, too, remembers that happiness is not a goal dependent on some future event. It is with us every day if we only make the effort to recognize it.
Developing "new eyes" to savor all around us would add to our happiness and the meaning of each hour and minute. Helen Keller speaks of this possibility: "I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days at some time during his early adult life," she says. "Darkness would make him more appreciative of sight; silence would teach him the joys of sound."
Imagining what she would most like to see if granted sight for three days, Keller relates that, on the first day, she "should want to see the people whose kindness and companionship have made my life worth living. I do not know what it is to see into the heart of a friend through that `window of the soul,' the eye."
On the second day, after rising with the dawn to "see the thrilling miracle by which night is transformed into day," she would devote the day to a hasty glimpse of the world, past and present. She would "see the pageant of man's progress" through museums of all kinds, seeking to probe into the soul of man through his artifacts, history, and creations.
On the third day, after again greeting the dawn with awe and reverence, Keller would place herself "in the workaday world, amid the haunts of men going about the business of life." She would stand on a busy street corner, merely looking at people, trying by sight to gain understanding of their daily lives - experiencing through that same sight the smiles, the determination, and the suffering of man. She would also visit the slums, the factories, the parks where children play, always her eyes open wide to the sights of happiness and misery - this so "that I may probe deep and add to my understanding of how people work and live."
Keller offers advice to all with their full five senses: "Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow. Touch each object as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again." In every respect, she finishes, "make the most of every sense and glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you."
JoAnn Larsen is a therapist in private practice in Salt Lake City.