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Dear Reader,
Sue Margolis, today's guest author (her latest release, Losing Me), gives herself and any of us who want to jump on board, permission to look at life in a little bit different way. I like what she has to say, how about you?
Welcome to the book club author Sue Margolis...
Oh, I almost forgot, you could win one of three copies of her book. Sue is waiting to hear from you. Email Sue at: berkleynalpublicity@penguinrandomhouse.com
Happy Talk.
I hit sixty this year. By far the best gift I received was the one I gave myself--permission to be unhappy--at least not all the time. As I enter my seventh decade, I have made a resolution. I don't always have to be happy.
My life is probably much like yours. Like you, I'm weighed down by demands: work, kids, elderly parents, bills, running a home. Everybody wants bits of me. On top of that the wider world is full of misery and suffering.
In the midst of all this comes even more pressure. I'm meant to stay healthy. I am expected to exercise, watch my carbs, watch my calories, my salt, my cholesterol. I am required to stay young. God forbid that as a woman I should show signs of aging. Lift those jowls. Fill those lines. Tuck that tummy.
Oh--and don't forget to be happy. Come on, where's that smile? You can do it.
Actually...no I can't. Having to be constantly happy is one pressure too many and I refuse to pretend any more.
It baffles me how people manage to remain chirpy day in day out. Money helps. But several rich people I know have informed me that wealth merely enables you to be miserable in comfort. I can only assume that smiley, life-is-a-cabaret-old-chum people are the way they are because they were either born with an excess of seratonin or they belong to the Woody Allen school of happiness: 'The only way to be happy is to tell yourself some lies or deceive yourself.'
All over the world Amazon warehouses are piled high with self-help books hawking happiness. We know we can achieve it. Finding it is like solving Rubik's cube or learning a complicated dance. Get the steps in the right order and tah-dah, happiness will be ours.
We all have those well-meaning 'happy' Facebook friends who can't go a day without posting a positive affirmation. These usually appear in loopy writing written over an ethereal image of a kitten playing with a ball of wool in a bluebell wood. They go something like this:
'When every day of your life is spent giving love unconditionally, you are blessed with a life full of love. And that love you are giving out is healing the world.'
No I'm not and no it isn't. Has the person who thought this up ever raised three kids?
Today when I was online minding my own business, I was invited to sign up to something called Positivity Newsletter. Apparently 59,426 people are already on the mailing list in the hope of finding the secret to living a 'happier, simpler life.'
What I don't understand is why it's not OK to be glum from time to time. A lot of the time, the world sucks. Unhappiness is a perfectly logical, rational and sane response. But we're not allowed to think that. If you don't find happiness, you are a failure. The pressure to be happy is so fierce that many people and doctors have come to believe that unhappiness is an illness that needs to be medicated. Clinical depression is one thing. But feeling a bit blue is surely, normal? It's real life.
I am not suggesting that moments of happiness aren't to be had. Of course they are. The problem is we often go through life without paying enough attention to the movie that just made us laugh until we cried, the child's drawing that made us spill over with joy, the song that came on the radio that made us dance like a crazy person while we were all alone cooking dinner.
So that's what I'm trying to teach myself--to enjoy and remember small moments of happiness and to stop aiming for an all over happiness tan, which most likely isn't there to be had--at least not for most of us. The rest of the time I intend give myself permission to grumble, moan and feel down. This, I suspect is the source of true happiness.
--Sue Margolis
Say hello to Sue Margolis. Your email will enter you in the drawing to win a copy of her new book, Losing Me. You can reach her at: berkleynalpublicity@penguinrandomhouse.com
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
* This month's Penguin Classics book is THERESE RAQUIN, by Emile Zola. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin tote bag, goto:
http://www.supportlibrary.com/bc/v.cfm?L=drclassqqxqT1AFEAEE9EEA&c=CLASSICS
AUTHORBUZZ: SERVICING THE TARGET (Fiction) by Cherise Sinclair
Coming up with a name for this book was a bit difficult, since the hero is a discharged Army Ranger, and no soft, romantic title seemed to fit. But then I ran across the term, "Servicing the Target," once used to denote bombing a target, and now occasionally used by snipers. What could be more perfect for this rough vet who has fallen in love with the notorious Mistress of the Shadowlands?
Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on SERVICING THE TARGET to find out more about the book and the author, Cherise Sinclair. Send her an email, she'd love to hear from you.
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