Henry Happiness

I have been debating what to put in this last blog post. For a while I wanted it to be this big sendoff on all the ways that I have felt better this semester and all the new ways I have found happiness. However, I have learned that just because something doesn't have a big sendoff does not mean it isn't meaningful in multiple ways. When I started this semester I thought I had it all figured out. I had a job and I was ready to work and balance school. I was wrong on so many fronts. I crashed and burned for a little while and had to go back to basics. I had to learn to pause and reexamine myself in ways that I had never done before. I realized that I had gotten caught up in everything and forgot to take care of myself along the way. This class has helped me to see that there is no right way to be happy. Happiness can be found at the end of many roads. One of my girlfriend's favorite sayings is that it is what it is. I had always found that statement infuriating in many differ...

  Thanksgiving is always complicated. You see the family you love a lot and you see the family you love very little. This Thanksgiving was very different for me. During the break, I realized that this had been a much harder semester for me than I realized. I have found new limits within myself, but also still hold a grudge against myself for pushing too hard too fast. I felt like this year I was sitting at the able to with a new pair of eyes and I saw it all very different than I had in years past. Some things that used to bother me did not have an impact on me. I was not bothered by the louder-than-needed football game. I was not annoyed by the family members that I had a bad relationship with. I was able to focus on the more simple things. I felt that this year I was able to slow down and truly enjoy the food. In years past I have always been in a rush to eat way too much food as I had no self-control. This year I felt that I truly enjoyed each bite. Another aspect that was diffe...

  I have always heard the phrase that once I graduate school I will become a real adult. While I was you ger I never thought of it as much, but here in senior year, it has been on my mind much more. When I was younger my parents made it all seem so easy. My meals were taken care of and I was always on time to sports practice. In my mind, I had created a perfect picture of what life was supposed to look like. That has been fractured slightly as I have gotten older. I see that the picture has a few cracks in it. I have learned about family drama as I have gotten older. Things from my childhood have been recontextualized into much more complicated events. I now see that my other and father do not always get along. I have seen my heroes and idols of my childhood turn out to be not who I thought they were. I thought everyone had it all figured out, but as I get older I see that most people are complicated. I see that some people are hanging on by a thread financially or emotionally. Ove...

   One of the things that I have been trying to focus on more is being more active. While I used to be very active when I was younger I have become less so as I have gotten older. I began with something small. A few weeks ago I would try to get to my classes a few minutes early and walk around the area where I needed to be. This led to on average another 20 to 30 minutes of walking a day. I was surprised how much better it made me feel after 2 weeks. I felt that I didn't catch myself catching my breath so much. One of the things that actually surprised me was my mood increase. I had always heard that working out and being more active would make me feel better, but I never quite believed it. Now I have started going to the gym at least 3 times a week and have felt a lot better. There is something very nice about putting on a podcast and just focusing on the workout for 30 minutes to an hour. I have enjoyed the feeling of quiet. There is also a sense of accomplishment early in t...

  When I was younger I had a hard time saying thank you. I was often more focused on getting what I wanted when I was that age. As I have gotten older I have seen the importance of telling people thank you. I realized that I had taken for granted how other people have made me feel and thought they knew how much they meant to me. I ran into this last semester when I had the same economics professor twice in a row. I had him freshman year in an online class. When I learned the class was at eight in the morning I was so mad. I thought that the class would be boring and I was not looking forward to it. I was incredibly surprised that during the first session, I was too busy laughing to take many notes. He often told stories about himself and put me at ease in every class. This was in the backdrop of Covid where everyone was isolated and there was nothing to do on campus. Most of my interactions were online with other students as opposed to meeting people face to face. At times over the...