Perfect happiness

Unusually warm February weather teased me with a taste of spring this week. The sun peaked out from behind the clouds, and I left my office and took a lap of the campus, basking in the warmth, smiling at the students and getting my blood flowing. It was bliss.

Perfect happiness doesn’t exist, but my walk across campus prompted me to reflect on what brings me closest:

Carla and Lance Wallace embrace on top of Rockefeller Center with the New York City skyline behind them. — I’m on top of the world when I’m with Carla. Here we are having a perfect happiness moment back in December at the top of Rockefeller Center.

Perfect happiness is contentment. No matter what is going on in my life, if I can be content in those circumstances, I can experience happiness. Like most of my emotions, I subjugate happiness to discipline. Contentment takes training and work, so my happiness, when I achieve it, is hard fought. I have to recognize that I can choose happiness. It requires taking my eyes off the swirling events around me and giving focus to what I can learn, process and express in the midst of those events, even if they are negative.

Perfect happiness is expression. Giving form to thoughts or imaginings is a unique pleasure that releases more than chemicals in the brain. Expressing ideas, particularly ones that gain traction and resonate with people, is fundamental to my makeup. To think that expression can live on well after I am gone is deeply satisfying. But similar to contentment, expression takes effort. My first drafts require revision. Being creative feels good, but true expression is work.

Perfect happiness is being present in the moment. Everything about my job in communications pulls me away from the moment. Every “ding” of a received text message, every chirping cell phone ring, every flagged email grabs my attention and leaves my loved ones starved for my acknowledgement. When I am aware of my surroundings — the conditions, temperatures, people, sounds, smells, and vistas — I feel truly alive. This takes so much effort sometimes that I fail myself and everyone around me by defaulting to the device in my pocket, succumbing to the greatest weapon against happiness the world has ever experienced – the smart phone.

Perfect happiness is physical exertion. The theme of hard work is laced throughout each of these descriptions, and for me, putting forth effort makes me happy. Whether it’s cutting the grass, going for a long run, swimming laps, or doing a bodyweight exercise circuit, I am happy when I am in motion and my heart rate is elevated. I like to sweat and push my limits. I want to be active until I die, and it makes me happy to think of myself as an old man puttering around the neighborhood, health club or even the mall, staying in motion.

Perfect happiness is accomplishment. The old adage among marathoners “it’s not about the race, it’s about the training” rings true to me. I also feel great happiness when I complete something. It’s nice to receive recognition for accomplishing a task or a goal, but it’s not necessary for my happiness. Most of the time I can recognize the accomplishment for what it is internally because I know what went into it. This pattern has been repeated so many times in my life I can’t even remember them all: serving as deacon chair for the first time, earning an MBA, writing a novel, running a marathon, canoeing the Ocmulgee River. There was happiness in the moment of each of those experiences, and there was happiness at accomplishing them.

Perfect happiness is relationship. I used to believe that love was measured in effort. If a relationship was effortless, I believed it wasn’t true love. It was just a momentary emotion, and it wouldn’t last. After nearly 26 years of marriage, I have come to believe that while relationships take work, they also provide comfort, affirmation, and embrace of the whole self. When Carla and I are connected and in sync, there is great happiness. I have reached the point in my life when I cannot imagine happiness apart from Carla. She amplifies my happiness because as we join in happiness together, it grows exponentially and infects each other and our children and those around us. When we are happy together, people are drawn to us, and we are our best selves.

Perfect happiness is sharing. Being able to give a part of myself away makes me happy. Whether it’s sharing my money, my French fries, the bed covers, my writing, or my attention, I am happpy when I am focused on others. Contributing to something greater pulls me out of that dangerous and destructive emotional space of self. I believe life isn’t about me, even my own life. It makes me happy to make life about others, giving to them, being with them and sharing with them, particularly humor.

Perfect happiness is laughter. It’s not a great revelation to profess laughter to be beneficial. Everyone knows and quotes the old saying “Laughter is the best medicine.” It is both a symptom and an ingredient in my idea of perfect happiness. The physicality of deep laughter robs me of breath like a workout. The emotional cleansing is more thorough than weeping. Laughter resets my mood and emotions better than meditation. Finding laughter spontaneously rather than seeking it or forcing it gives it power. It’s the one item from this list that is more effective for me with less effort.

For me, this list are the components or ingredients required for me to be happy, but individual sources of happiness that contribute to my wholeness. It’s probably not even an exhaustive list, but it’s a good start.

I would do well to remember this list and reflect on it often.

What is perfect happiness for you? Leave a comment and let us in on your ideas.

Little gym, big gym

Last Saturday Carlton and our family and friends celebrated his fourth birthday at The Little Gym in Snellville.

Carlton and friends at The Little Gym — See? Smiles everywhere. Carlton and his friends had a blast.

Though Carlton only took classes there for six weeks, he often asks to go back. The birthday party was the perfect excuse.

The folks at The Little Gym were organized, well-staffed, professional but personal, and they made the entire experience a pleasure. We got to watch the kids have fun and take pictures while the staff ran the party. I can’t recommend The Little Gym enough. There’s a reason Parents magazine named The Little Gym the number one place to host children’s birthday parties.

Along with my recent job change, I’ve changed gyms as I seek to find a schedule that makes sense for me. I’m no longer at the Fitness 19 around the corner, though I had a good experience there for several years.

Now, I’m at the palatial Campus Recreation Center at Georgia Tech, the modified former venue of Olympic swimming and diving. It’s massive, with 14 machines of every type, and the equipment is so new I don’t even know what to do with some of it.

All this gym talk had me thinking about the similarities and differences between Carlton’s gym and my gym. So here’s my analysis, using the five senses as an organizing principle:

Sight: The Little Gym is full of bright, primary colors appropriate for children who are learning such basic concepts. The big gym has the appropriate Georgia Tech old gold and white with the navy and black accent colors tastefully and athletically applied. Both are well lit. Obviously, the patrons of The Little Gym are quite a bit shorter but after a rousing game of follow the leader or parachute circle, no less sweaty than their larger equivalents at the big gym. The key difference? The Little Gym people have way more smiling going on.

Carlton gets dizzy with the parachute game — No skydiving required for this parachute, but Carlton still got a little dizzy.

Smell: Without putting too fine a point on it, adults who are exerting smell bad. Children who are exerting have no real smell; unless they are so busy playing they forget to take a potty break. Both gyms smell of antibacterial cleanser, although I have to say The Little Gym has some of the “Scentsy” candle air fresheners that are aromatherapeutic–a nice added touch.

Taste: When I’m at the big gym, all I have is water. It’s pretty much tasteless, unless some of my salty sweat drips down my face while I’m at the water fountain. At The Little Gym, we had juice pouches, popcorn and cupcakes. Now that is fuel for a workout! I do eat a protein bar and a banana or apple after my workout, but as far as breakfasts go, it’s lacking.

Sound: Both gyms have up-tempo music playing to help you get revved up. At The Little Gym, they played a number of hits from the ‘50s and ‘60s such as “Tossin’ and Turnin’,” “Rockin’ Robin” and others. At the big gym, it’s typically a mix of hits from the ‘90s, dance tunes, and hip-hop. It’s enough to make me want my ear buds, but I tend to tune it out most of the time.

The view from the high dive platform — Mere mortals are not allowed up on the high dive platform, but it does make for a really nice view of the big gym’s pool.

Touch: Nearly everything at The Little Gym is padded. There are parallel bars, a high bar, rings and other apparatus that feel the same for the kids as they would the grownups, but overall, it’s soft place to fall, jump, tumble, flip and bounce. The surfaces of the big gym are less forgiving. There is a rubber floor, which absorbs the impact of dumbbells and barbells, and the four or five mats do offer some padding for stretching, yoga or other forms of fitness-related torture. In general, though, the big gym isn’t a place you’d want to fall down.

OK, so what’s my point? All of this is obvious, you say. Well, it’s clear that kids have more fun at The Little Gym than adults do at the big gym. And I think the reasons are in my analysis above. But more than the atmosphere and the physical setting, it’s about attitude.

No matter what color the walls are painted or how the place smells we can all bring a little more child-like play to our fitness. Not only would we enjoy it more, we would probably get healthier in the process.

I think I need a little more Little Gym in my big gym.

OK, it’s your turn. What do you like about your gym? What don’t you like? Have you had any experience with the Little Gym or places that are similar? Leave a comment below and share!

Running on fumes

Glowing like a nightlight in my reflective vest, I barreled down the hill as a Parkview school bus chugged past. On the last leg of a four-mile pre-dawn run, my lungs filled with the noxious fumes the bus belched as it crawled up toward the intersection.

Diesel fumes — Who wouldn't love a face full of this stuff to help get them going on a morning run?

In my 18 years as a runner, this scene has played out roughly the same so many times I can’t even count. What made this notable was that it was my first diesel fume blast of the season.

I have no experience with inhalants or hallucinogenic drugs, so I can’t really compare the sensation you get when your muscles, starved for oxygen are instead fed a helping of
carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and aldehydes. Let’s just say it feels as if all of your energy seeps out like air escaping from a leaky balloon.

You don’t need a code orange smog alert from the Clean Air Campaign to know this really isn’t good for you. Our awareness is probably greater here in Atlanta because of the annual emissions tests our cars have to pass before we can renew our tags, but I think in general people who walk or run for exercise are the most sensitive to the contents of our air.

I remember watching the marathon during the Beijing Summer Olympic games as the athletes choked through smog so thick it was visible on television.

“That can’t be good,” I thought.

I’ve already written about the prevalence of asthma inhaler use I’ve noticed among kids in the Atlanta area, and I’ve used this space to tell how I relive my grandmother’s cooking when I smell bacon cooking. Diesel fumes cause a similarly evocative experience. While I’m coughing and gagging and losing precious seconds on my split times, I’m simultaneously transported back to the fall of 1991 when I interned in Washington, D.C.

You can insert your own political commentary about how the smell of pollution makes me think of our nation’s capital, but during that fall, I didn’t have a car. I really didn’t need one because the Metro took me everywhere I needed to go. But to get to the Metro, I walked. And as I trod upon the sidewalks around the Capitol, dodging the homeless and avoiding the picketers, I was frequently treated to a puff of diesel fumes from the ubiquitous transit buses.

The Capitol — Maybe as much air pollution inside this building as outside.

Maybe it’s the combination of the fall air with the smell that makes me think of that semester I spent in D.C., but once again, last Thursday as another school bus rumbled past me, I thought about that time on Constitution Avenue with my four roommates as I learned the way journalism works or doesn’t work inside the Beltway.

I know buses are a necessary evil. I know clean air should be a right not a luxury. I know alternative fuels come with their own set of problems. But, I look forward to the crisp, fall morning when a jog doesn’t have to result in a face full of toxic fumes.

Guess I’ll just have to get up earlier.