Finding happiness

Judy. Like many of you, I started doing some online studying in the past few weeks. Yale University offered their popular “Science of Well-Being” with Dr. Laurie Santos through the Coursera website, and I jumped on it.

Now, I’m a pretty happy and optimistic person, but I was intrigued by the idea that this could be a science. Sure enough, Dr. Santos backed up her philosophy with studies and statistics. It was absolutely fascinating (and still available—just Google it if you’re interested—and it’s free).

One of the first things Dr. Santos talked about is how we think owning “awesome stuff” will make us happy.  The truth is that a couple of weeks after we buy that shiny new and filled with memory laptop, it’s just another thing, and there’s a better one available. She calls it “hedonic adaptation.”  Did you wake up this morning and say, “Hot dog, let me at that two-year old Macbook!” Nope. It’s just a useful thing now.

What really interested me were the studies she quoted about experiences being more important than things. According to the good doctor, as well as several of her colleagues, people remember things they DO more than things they GOT. They found that even friends enjoyed hearing more about experiences than they did about things.

Ted and Caed in Arizona

With Parker in Greece in 2013

We’ve always preferred giving experiences to our family as gifts. The best have been travels, early on with our kids, and more recently with grandsons Parker and Caedmon. We still talk about places we’ve visited together and the fun we had. A couple of Christmases ago we rented a house in Florida and spent the week kayaking, swimming, eating, sunning, and so on.

Sometimes, the gift was a concert, a class, or even dinner together followed by something the recipient wanted to do. One of my favorite memories is having dinner in downtown Athens with Parker, after which he took me to the top of a parking deck to show me “the best place in Athens to see the sunset.” (It was spectacular, by the way.) Daughter Leslie and I make it a point to celebrate birthdays by going out to dinner and maybe getting a pedicure. We watch our son Stefan’s kids so that he and his wife Sarah can shop without interruption, or go to dinner or whatever. We take Oliver to a nearby biking trail so he can use up lots of energy. And we let him and his brother Callum play in the back of "Raymond the Cowboy Truck." We’ll talk about those things for years to come, small though some of them are.

Pure joy

The plan had been to go to Europe this summer with Parker and Caedmon and Leslie. Parker and Les would head to Ireland, while Caed would stay in London with us. We found a book with a scavenger hunt all over the city to introduce him to some of the cooler stuff. Then we’d all meet up to visit our family in Spain. Well, thank you, Covid-19, that never happened—YET.

There are still experiences we can do together. Caed comes over about once a week, which for him is a big deal. He gets completely spoiled for a couple of days. Every now and then we hike with him and Leslie, and on our last hike hit the jackpot with a plethora of chanterelle mushrooms. That’s a memory we’ll share for awhile.

Fun day hiking and great dinner awaits

Yes, there’s the occasional book or toy from another country, especially for Oliver and Callum, our young grandsons. But, God willing, when they’re old enough, we’re headed off on an adventure, hopefully in another country. And we’ll talk about it for years to come.