>okay, post-yoga post.

so, I was walking to the store after yoga because the last several times I had gone to get toilet paper I had, of course, forgotten to get toilet paper. Today, my resolve was intact: I would leave the store with toilet paper.

On my way, as I passed the rather large rosemary bushes decorating the north side of Olive, I realized how, as a habit, I always ran a sprig through my fingers as I walked by so the scent of rosemary would follow me on my errand. I realized, this simple thing…my assault of an innocent herb flourishing on the sidewalk…made me happy.

So why the hell, if my threshold for happiness is so easily met, by a shrub, a pug, the smile that crosses my face when I see the pair of tennis shoes, spray painted fluorescent orange, dangling from the telephone wires on Denny and 12th…why aren’t these simple things enough to pull me up and out of dwelling on the very few things in my life that bring me sadness? The few things I have little or no control over…I submerge into these negative feedback loops consisting of frustration, sadness, jealousy, anger, resentment…why is it so easy to sink into the things that bring unhappiness and so challenging to remember the simple things that bring you joy?

The changing of my perspective and focusing on what is as opposed to what I think it is is fundamental to the work I have to do on myself.

As the Dalai Lama says: “Happiness can be achieved by training the mind.”

voulez-voulez-vous Ommmmm…