POETS UNITED - HAPPINESS

“Be happy for this moment, for this moment is your life.” - Omar Khayyám

This week Susan of Poets United has set the theme of “happiness”, on which participants are to contribute a poem.

Defining happiness can be difficult as it means many different things to different people. Some people say they are happy if they are experiencing well-being, have a high quality of life and if they are flourishing. Some equate happiness with contentment. Other people take a more hedonistic approach and say they are happy when they are successful in their search for pleasant (and avoidance of unpleasant!) experiences.

Some of us, look at happiness in a more holistic way, believing in living life fully and in a deeply satisfying way. This may include unpleasant experiences together with the pleasant ones, but happiness implies that we can cope with the unpleasantness, being able to make positives of negatives and being content knowing that one has done the right thing at the right time, and that one has acted with consideration for others, has been kind, compassionate and selfless. It is a case of living one’s life with virtue and probity and being rewarded with happiness.

If this sounds too philosophical for you, then you can simply think of happiness as being a string of moments of feeling good because you are pleasing yourself, and at the same time not only not displeasing others, but also making them experience good feelings as well. And this for me is paramount – happiness is not a solitary feeling to be experienced by me alone, it is a feeling that I need to share with others – it is its inclusiveness of others that multiplies the positivity of experience for oneself.

Here is my poetic contribution:


My Happiness

When I work with others

And all of us, we toil united

To make of this world

For everyone a better place,

That is when happiness is born.

When I can help to build,

Rather than raze, demolish;

When I can say a kind thing

Rather than search for bitter criticisms,

My happiness multiplies and grows.

When I can right a wrong,

Ask for forgiveness, genuinely;

And when I can make amends

Discreetly, from my heart, without effort,

That is when my happiness is most keenly felt.

When I am with you

And I make your eyes smile,

That is the moment

That will live on in my memory,

My life coloured by my happiness.