EcoBliss: Happy People = Happy Planet

Our Sweet House in the Spring

Listening to right now: Miou Miou (Happy inducing, French pop. Give a listen and just try to stay grouchy.)

Today's Happiness Formula: The Trees! Many of the flowering trees are at their flower-y best right now. Make sure to take note.

I realized that I've been writing a lot about personal choices and priorities but have not given a hint as to my own. And though abstract ideas are fine, there's nothing like concrete examples.

So I thought I would share how my partner and I came to know and live our bliss.

(I will also, in the very near future, start to share interviews with artists, yoga teachers, and others who have found their bliss and live it.)

Day by day, minute by minute, you are making choices. Whether or not you do so consciously, you make choices that reflect priorities that lead to consequences.

A large number of the world's and of the individual's problems come from the fact that all of this choice making and priority setting happens on an unconscious level, from which it appears that life is happening to you, when in reality, you are creating your life. Basic stuff, this.

The path to personal freedom is not paved with wishes or intentions or goal lists, though all of this can help.

The path to personal freedom is paved with personal responsibility.

You empower yourself by taking responsibility for where you are and where you want to go.

With that in mind, my partner and I decided years ago on our priorities. This list cannot be very long. You only have so much energy, so much time, and so much focus.

And furthermore, this list must come from JOY. (I would write that really giant but it would be obnoxious.)

I cannot emphasize JOY enough. It cannot come from a sense of obligation, a desire to change others, or a desire to change the environment. Eventually, these foundations crumble because you are only in charge of you.

So, my partner and I decided that our priorities were: each other, our animals, our writing and art, and our home.

We needed and wanted lots of time with each other and our animals, time to write and make art, time to garden and just be.

So when the bank told us we could afford a very large home, we bought a wee brick Cape Cod. She is under 900 square feet and we live in every foot of that. There is no guest bedroom, rather there is an art studio and a library. And she takes a lot less time to clean and a lot less cleaner (even though it's organic, it still comes in a container).

When we realized that we could live on even less -- and thus have more time -- if we didn't have a car, we became bikers, walkers, and users of public transportation. We've been doing this for seven years -- in a small city with a limited number of bus routes. (This choice became, for us, highly politicized as 9/11 happened mere months later.)

We don't travel. We'd rather put the money into our yard or paint supplies or a new computer for writing.

We buy organic and local food because we care about each other, and we care about the health of the land on which we own our home and live our lives.

Because we bought a smaller house than the bank wanted us to, we were able to pay it off. Now we live on one salary. More time for art and writing and each other.

Since we don't both have full time jobs, we don't need the wardrobes.

Since we bike and walk, we don't need a gym membership.

(Let me insert here: money is not bad, having things is not bad. What is bad is what we are willing to exchange for money and things. Also, my partner and I have tons of fun all the time. This is not about scarcity but rather true abundance.)

You get it.

But here's the totally cool part: these things that we did for purely selfish reasons, because they were tied to our hearts' true desires (and not desires put there by advertising and the wider culture), because of these things, the planet is better off.

Our footprint is quite small, as you can imagine.

It's amazing how this works.

Happy People really do equal a Happy Planet. (And I'm not even touching on the emotional and spiritual implications of that sentence.)

What joys could you pursue that would make you happy? What choices could you make to live your priorities every day? How could this lead to a better place for all of us?