Happy Enough

Happy: Having, showing, or causing a feeling of great pleasure, contentment, joy, etc.; joyous; glad; pleased.



Curious definition. I feel like some devil has reached into my mouth and grabbed my tongue, and is waggling it furiously. I can really put my finger on what makes me mad or what makes me furious or what really pisses me off but I become strangely silent when I think of happiness. One minute my brain is filled with screaming, insistent committee members yowling for revenge or sex or something shiny and new to play with and, in an instant, all you can see is a lonely tumbleweed bouncing across a devastated landscape, a thin wind blowing, coyotes yipping in the distance.


In a movie we watched last night the stereotypical perky waitress asked the stereotypical crusty but strangely lovable cook if he was happy. He looked at her and said: "Happy enough. I don't ask much, I don't give much, and I don't get much. Happy enough. Why do you ask?"


I think he's missing the boat with the not giving part but everything else made sense in kind of a neat little Hollywood wrap-life-up-in-one-sentence way. I'm happy when I don't expect much. Those freaking expectations can really get in the way of a decent life. How easy is it to feel frustrated at the end of the day because something tremendous didn't happen? I place a lot of pressure on an ordinary day to really come up big.

Happy enough.