FURTHERMORE
By Gerry Moran
Thursday, March 20 gone by was International Happiness Day. And no one told me (I only found out later). Not one relation, friend or acquaintance phoned me, texted me, emailed me – to let me know because, if they had, that gesture in itself would have made me happy. Or at least happy-ish! Can one be happy-ish? I guess if one can be sad-ish one can be happy-ish.
Had I known that March 20 was International Happiness Day I would have made an effort to be happy. How? By parking, for the day, any issues I had (all two) and practising a bit of positive thinking.
Whenever I hear happiness mentioned I think of the late, great Billy Hoare from Graiguenamagh and a chat we had many years ago.
Billy was 74 at the time and looked sprightly and full of the joys (as he always did). “Billy Hoare tell me this and tell me no more,” I asked, “what’s the secret to your good spirits and happiness?” Without blinking an eye Billy replied: “I put it all down to four Gs and a B.”
Billy left that answer hanging for a few seconds as he watched, in amusement, my brow furrow in puzzlement. “Go on,” I said, “explain.’”Billy duly obliged. “The four Gs are: grandchildren, gardening, golf and the GAA.”
“And the B?” I enquired. “Brandy,” laughed Billy. “In moderation, I hope,” I said. “But, of course,” smiled Billy and proceeded to tell me about the night he bumped into an ass in the dark going home from the pub; after considering the situation for a moment he did the sensible thing – he hopped up on the ass and rode it home. “You did in your ass?”
“I did,” said Billy and we burst out laughing. For Billy, happiness was ‘Four Gs and a B’ while American author William Lyon Phelps wrote: “If happiness consisted in physical ease and freedom from care, then the happiest individual would not be a man or woman; it would be, I think, a cow.” (Or maybe Billy’s ass!). The Swiss explorer and writer Isabelle Eberhardt reckoned: “One should never look for happiness, one meets it on the way,” while the great American writer Henry David Thoreau declared: “If you want to be happy – be.”
Kenneth Benjamin, founder of ‘Happiness International’ believes: “Happiness is when your life fulfils your needs. If you’re not happy, do you change your life to fulfil your needs or change your needs to fulfil your life?” Food for thought for sure.
The German poet Goethe wrote: “He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.” For those of us who remember black & white television – happiness was a cigar called Hamlet, smoked to the soothing sound of Bach’s Air on a G-String (I puffed a few in my time but I wasn’t any happier).
I’m still working on a definition of happiness myself but three words that I am happy using when it comes to defining happiness, or at least contentment (the next best thing) are: “Peace of mind.” Because it’s damn difficult, if not impossible, to be happy, or content, without that peace.
I rather like this offering from the British poet Wilfrid Scawen Blunt: “The real thing in life is to be happy. The older I get the more convinced I am that no ambition is worth pursuing except that of being happy. I would not give a brass button to be the greatest general that ever won a battle or the greatest statesman that bamboozled the world. But I should like to be quite happy to the last day of my life and to inspire affection at the age of 80.” (William lived to be 82).
I’ll leave you with my favourite – Jerome K Jerome’s take on happiness, from his classic Three Men In A Boat: “Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need – a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog… enough to eat and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.”
And suddenly I’m thinking of Billy Hoare and his brandy.
