May 10 | Happiness

I have been reading a book on happiness written by a grump called "The Geography of Bliss". Jeremy Bentham, a London lawyer in 1776 came up with a mathematical proposition to calculate happiness. His theory was that you add up all your pleasurable experiences and subtract the unpleasant ones, and the result was your level of happiness.

I was sitting on my front porch with new Boston ferns swinging in the morning breeze and the sun warming my toes. This got me thinking. Was I happy? I decided to do the math.

I love my home with all its creaks and cracks. The crooked floors, mismatched chairs, svelte lawn and manicured garden. My wife, a beautiful blond woman with tanned skin, dirt under her fingernails and a love of her vegetable garden. Three beautiful children who I both adore and whom drive me crazy in equal measure. And our dog Seamus whom I would donate a kidney for.



I love living at the beach with all its peculiarity. The smells, sounds and sights of living in the low country. Early mornings on the beach with my good friend Bob, searching for waves and drifting among the dolphins. Long days at the shore with sandwiches packed in ice and cold iced tea. Even the seagulls, which can be rats with wings, make me smile. Fresh baguettes smeared with pesto and feta cheese. Hotdogs. Fresh, sweet corn, which as Garrison Keillor has said is better than sex. An outdoor shower, which after a day in the sun at the beach is proof of a loving God. Our screenhouse full of surfboards, fishing poles, a mini fridge full of cold beer and a fan to blow all your troubles away.

I love the winter, where we pack ourselves away indoors in front of the fire and read books and watch movies. I love roast chickens, mashed potatoes, canned green beans, and red wine. I love the smell of sawdust as it spills out of the back of the chainsaw and the sight of our dogs lounging in the dry leaves. The long walks on Sundays where we walk in a circle and talk of nothing. Football and hot wings. Hoodies and warm socks.

I love quiet mornings where it's just me and a book, a journal and the dog. The feeling that you have the whole day ahead of you and you're the only one awake. In the winter it's in front of a crackling fire. In the summer it might be on the beach with a newspaper and a steaming cup of coffee.

I don't want to detail the things in my life that are unpleasant, but suffice it say, they are do not add up.

And for than I am happy for today.