Day 1: 30 Days of Happiness

Alright Day 1 of this circus. What better situation to test the theory of synthetic happiness than my first day back to work! I work at a theme park and for now I won't say which one because who knows what ramifications that might have, between me getting fired and some pervert on here finding me and beginning to stalk me!

So, I wake up all groggy at around 6:30 even though I went to bed at a reasonable hour. I looked at mirror to discover bags under my eyes but then BAM! SYNTHETIC HAPPINESS TIME. I remember I've had these shifts before and they are always really slow and really painless and there's no reason to have this sense of resistance whenever I'm on my way to work. So far so good. I'm adapting, like some kind of lizard. 

When I arrive at work I'm early enough to get a spot in the normal parking lot that's now mostly blocked off to make way for construction of a parking garage. I was there with so much extra time I decided to practice my meditation right there in the car. I folded my legs, shut my eyes, repeated the same measured breathing for ten whole minutes. When you meditate the idea isn't to turn off your mind, in fact if something pops into your head you track where it came from. The idea is to step outside of your thoughts and try see them function. When I first started meditating I liked to imagine my mind would ideally function as a well oiled machine and for some reason I always associated it with model trains (yeah I don't know) but of course mine was never a well tuned train set. It was more like...

 But of course there was improvement over time. Anyway when I meditated this morning I didn't experience anything too profound outside of a nice lightness and the fact that I was taken back with just how long ten minutes feels when you're not rushing to punch the clock. Something else I noticed was all the little industrial sounds that never register (from the parking garage being built) lots of motors and drill sounds in the distance, sometimes just picking out one sound or one detail to focus on or describe is a great way to stay in the moment. The alarm on my phone startled me because it sounds like a duck (yeah I don't know). And I had a quick beautiful little moment like something out of an IFC movie where as soon as I opened my eyes and looked up at the sky, all the lights in the parking lot switched off because suddenly there was enough light :)

I'm convinced the wardrobe building where all the employees assemble their outfits is like some 'Twilight Zone' wormhole where no matter how brisk you are in getting your outfit together you cannot escape in under 15 mins. Today that didn't matter because I carried with me the same sense of time I had during my meditation where I was really conscious just how much time I had. And for a while as I was walking I had some of the same lightness. SYNTHETIC HAPPINESS BAM!

Now I journal my three positive experiences from the previous day.  My three positive experiences.

Here's the first thing I learned: Try to involve others in your positive experiences because when they all just involve you in your house you start to sound insane. Anyway:

1. I went for Pizza with my family: This isn't a huge deal but I just got back from an ordeal that was supposed to be a vacation (that I will detail later) so it was nice sitting with them and for once we didn't argue about some nonsense.

2. Me and my mom brought cookie dough: But the kicker is we used the self service checkout and when my drunk mom got frustrated with the machine she decided she was leaving all while still owing a few dollars. Funny.

3. Finally and most embarrassingly, Extreme Prejudice staring Nick Nolte was on TV: Extreme Prejudice is possibly one of the most manly movies you'll ever see and normally I'm not even into that sort of thing. But the male aggression just explodes off the screen in this movie. It makes The Expendables look like The Notebook. Its like every man in this movie just learned his wife was blowing his best friend and decides to go on a shooting rampage and they just happen to take their aggression out on one another. Just watch the trailer:

This is the most rewarding bit of the exercise, it really is a new way of thinking for me.

At work I was on the clock with some usual team members of mine. Let's call the lady Phyllis and the man Jeff, now they're both older and in Jeff's case WAY older. But they always have stories to share and I never interact much with them, not because I'm afraid of old folks but because they are so full of knowledge and life experience that I can't get on their level. And I overcomplicated normal conversations pretty often but I decided it was time for synthetic happiness. Yeah I'd rather be staffed with lots of fine ladies who love Nick Nolte but I'm here with Phyllis and Jeff so I'll bond. I learned that Phyllis is the baby of her family yet she is the one who takes care of everyone and sometimes pays her sister's electric bills, she also has a rump roast in her freezer along with a bunch of chickens. Jeff added in that he cooks his roasts for five hours and that makes the meat really tender. Synthetic happiness?? eh. Now I know who to go to for rump roast advice.

I spent the rest of my day focusing on how to be happy but I had two tasks left. One was to exercise, that was simple because I am strong and physically I feel I would do well in a fight. I did three sets of 100 crunches and three sets of 25 pushups (I got this number in a book that teaches you how to be a superhero). I felt pretty well. Now my last task was my random act of kindness. I had kinda put this one out of my mind. Then thanks to it being awards season it came to me. One of my best friends from high school, Haley (she wont care that she's named here) was married recently and I thought of her since we always used to talk about the Oscars. I told her how happy I was for her and how I still consider her one of my dearest friends, how she was a part of most of my best high school memories. On the flip side she's also one of the only people I know who loves Dances With Wolves so I had to remind her just for old time's sake that Goodfellas was better. We agreed that when I go exploring the country to find myself I'd swing by Nebraska (where she lives) and visit her. Randomly messaging old friends is great, it puts things in perspective when it comes to what kind of impact two friends can have on each other.