PRETENDING TO BE HAPPY

[This Monday’s Archive was originally published on May 13, 2005. These days, we all could use a way to “pretend” to be happy, to transform the seeming mundane into an experience of magical gratitude. I hope you find it useful. Let me know if it does.]
TTP, May 13, 2005
Last week was the 13th birthday of my youngest son, Jackson. One evening a few days before, I was engrossed in writing on the computer when my wife reminded me it was Jackson’s bedtime. He was in bed reading, waiting for me to kiss him goodnight.
As I walked down the hall towards his room, my brain was filled with thoughts about the article I was working on. I was on autopilot and all I could think about was what I would write when I got back on the computer.
For some reason, I stopped and stood still. Somehow, an extraneous thought had popped into my consciousness from nowhere.


Mosab Hassan Yousef has seen how terrorist movements build from the inside, as he grew up the son of one of Hamas’s co-founders. Now he’s warning that jihadis are putting the same destructive game plan that turned Gaza into an Islamic terrorist cesspool into action in the United States.
Called “ultraconservative” by the liberal media, Japan’s new prime minister is its first woman ever in that position. But a Japanese feminist author told NBC News that Japan attaining its first female prime minister “doesn’t make me happy.”


Having choices is wonderful.


