Happy People

Happy people live longer. Google it if you don't believe me; I know there are studies out there to support my opinion (I love how "google" is a verb now). I'm sure that happy people still want things, make mistakes, have regrets, but in my experience, which I admit is limited, truly happy people are content with their lot in life. So in honor of Thanksgiving, and because I want to be a truly happy person, I have decided to share with you five things that I'm grateful for:

1. A skill with my hands: my roommate taught me how to crochet this semester and now I will never be able to sit at home and idly watch a movie again. I am grateful that I can be productive and lazy at the same time.

2. Good food, and lots of it. I've never understood disorders like bulimia and anorexia because I have a great relationship with food (I'm still working on my relationship with the gym). And I'm sure there are more people than I can imagine who didn't have dinner today. On the one day of the year that it's acceptable to not be on a diet, food is definitely something to be grateful for.

3. BOOKS!!! I love books! I will never be able to say this enough. I love books so much that I have bookshelf full at my apartment and a bookshelf full at my parents' house. My mother actually grounded me from books in the fifth grade because I read instead of doing my math homework (the only time I've ever been grounded, by the way). Books have the amazing power to take me places--analytically, emotionally, imaginatively--that I doubt I'll ever find another way to travel to. Can you tell what I want to do when I grow up?

4. Movies. To a much lesser degree than books, movies can also take me places I may never experience in any other way. The major difference between books and movies is the latter's visual element; the range of sensory detail available for expression is much greater in movies because of that. And when a movie reinterprets a book, it totally changes how you read that book again, because you go to it with the visual element and the imaginative element side by side in your mind. They're also a great way to be productive and lazy at the same time, if you have a skill with your hands (if not, you're just being lazy).

5. Education. As strange as it might sound--especially as we approach finals week--I love school. I love learning new things, reading new material, thinking about something in a way completely opposite to how I might have originally thought about it. This applies particularly to my Fiction Writing class, where in small workshops we help each other write better by sharing what we thought the authors did well in their stories and by offering suggestions for revision. My fiction is so much better now. I love my roommates, but they read my stories and say "I like it. It's good." I love my workshop classmates, because they tear my writing apart and point out all my weaknesses, and each story I write gets stronger than the last, builds on techniques I learn from that education.

I realize that technically it's not Thanksgiving anymore, but if you haven't already, I challenge you to pause and consider the things you're grateful for. Feel free to share in the comments section below. It's a hard lesson to learn how much you love something only after you've lost it. And you'll be happier anyway. That's the whole point of life, isn't it?