My sister blogger (are we sisters if we're the same damn person?) Betty Fokker wrote about happiness and what makes a person happy. Of course, I was thinking of just this thing lately, though not with the awesome study to back it up. :)
I have found the people of Victoria to be FAR less friendly than the people of Regina. I'm not sure why this is, but Mr. FCS says it's a survival thing. If being outside can kill you, you'd better be able to count on the people around you, so you don't piss them off. I don't know if he's on to something or not. And I don't know if friendliness equates to happiness. But it's a random interesting (to me) thought. :)
I think the reason for a lot of unhappiness is capitalism. The constant drive to have More. That what you have now isn't good enough. Never be satisfied. Always compete. Always put yourself first. It cannot possibly bring anyone happiness.
I've written about the Little Things before, haven't I? I dunno, and I can't be arsed to find it. Gist: "You can't argue with the little things, Homer. It's the little things that make up life." If a bunch of little shit gets you down, it doesn't matter if you're a millionaire or a pauper. If the little things are good for you, it's probably better to be the millionaire, but the pauper will be happy too. :)
I got thinking about that this weekend when someone said she found it annoying to wake up to "GOOD MORNING, MOMMY!" and I said, "If one of my boys said that, I'd jump out of bed and shout 'Hallelujah!'", not thinking that I might be being a little insensitive. It's one of those little things that can be really annoying if you have it and are taking it for granted. Hell, I do the same thing! Crackle gets up in the morning and comes into my bed and snuggles up to me. Unfortunately, he does a vocal stim the whole time and I wake up to "Ay! Ay! Aye!" every few seconds. But he's cuddly. And LOTS of parents of autistic kids don't get the cuddles. They'd shout hallelujah if their child would snuggle with them, and wouldn't begrudge them the stim. So, I remembered that this morning when he was particularly loud, and just enjoyed the snuggle.
