A MOMENT FOR YOU

What’s one small step you can take today?

No perfect answers. Just a little room to reflect.

“Each day comes bearing its gifts. Untie the ribbons.” – Ruth Ann Schabacker

That line opens today’s reading in Keep It Simple, shared in Daily Ponderables, and I love the picture it paints. Every morning a package lands on the doorstep with our name on it. Most days we step right over it on the way to the car.

Today’s readings kept circling one idea. Happiness isn’t something we hunt down. It’s something we receive, and it tends to show up when we’re living right.

You can’t catch happiness by chasing it

Twenty-Four Hours a Day says it bluntly in this morning’s Meditation for the Day: “We cannot find true happiness by looking for it. Seeking pleasure does not bring happiness in the long run, only disillusionment.”

Anyone in recovery knows that from the inside. Using was a pleasure hunt. The payoff kept shrinking, and the price kept climbing.

The same page offers a better way: “Happiness is a by-product of living the right kind of life.”

By-product. Think of the warmth that comes off a fire you built to cook dinner. You didn’t aim at the warmth. It came with doing the job well.

Years ago I wrote about my own version of this in A spiritual life is a happy life. Happiness was my goal from the time I was a kid. Then I tied it to partying, later to fun, and later still to money and things. As I put it then, “Somewhere along the line I began to realize that none of it amounted to anything more than chasing happiness.”

The prayer that goes with today’s meditation is one I can live with: “I pray that I may be content with the happiness that comes when I do the right thing.”

Receive what the day brings

Keep It Simple reminds us, “Whatever gifts the day brings, we must be able to receive them.” And how do we stay ready? “We keep our spirit open and lively through prayer and meditation.”

The Dynamic Catholic Daily Reflection this morning shared St. Gianna Molla: “The secret of happiness is to live moment by moment and to thank God for all that He, in His goodness, sends to us day after day.”

Moment by moment. Not someday, when everything finally lines up.

Twenty-Four Hours a Day opens its meditation with a line from the Psalms, here in the English Standard Version: “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Psalm 16:11 (ESV). Notice where the joy lives. On a path, and in a presence. Not at the end of a chase.

Your Daily Reprieve shared a 1950 letter from Bill W., printed in As Bill Sees It, that says it plainly: “When happiness comes, we accept it as a gift and thank God for it.” He also wrote, “I don’t think happiness or unhappiness is the point.” For Bill, the point was growing and helping others grow.

The gifts are usually small

Today’s Thought for the Day in Twenty-Four Hours a Day lists what recovery hands back to us: “I can write letters that need to be written. I can make telephone calls that should be made. I can work in my garden.” Then it asks, “Have I recovered my initiative?”

Those are gifts, too. Returning the call. Finishing the chore you avoided for a month.

Some research supports paying attention to small good things. A 2019 study led by Bettina Hoeppner in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment asked people in recovery to try short, do-it-yourself happiness exercises online, such as savoring two good experiences from the day or naming a highlight, a challenge, and something to look forward to. According to the Recovery Research Institute’s summary, the exercises took about four minutes and raised in-the-moment happiness.

I once wrote in Is everybody happy?, “I believe that happiness is a feeling and joy is a state.” Small gifts, noticed every day, are how the feeling grows into the state.

Give it away to keep it

Just for Today put it beautifully this morning: “Love given, and love received, is the essence of life itself.” Near the end, it repeats something we hear over and over in recovery: “We keep what we have only by giving it away.”

Happiness works the same way. In Success-Full I wrote, “If you want to be happy, do what happy people do!” And happy people give. They show up and share what they were freely given.

Five ways to untie the ribbons today

  1. Name the first gift before your feet hit the floor. Being sober today counts.
  2. Do one right thing you’ve been putting off. Write the letter, make the call, pull the weeds. Let happiness be the by-product.
  3. Savor one moment on purpose. A good laugh, a kind word, a walk outside.
  4. Give one gift away. Encouragement, a ride, a listening ear.
  5. List the gifts at night. Today’s Keep It Simple action is perfect as written: “At the end of the day, I’ll take time to list the gifts I’ve been given today. This will be first on my list: I am sober.”

Life is meant to be enjoyed

In Recovery Thinking, I wrote, “Life is meant to be enjoyed and not to be endured. That is the key to reasonable happiness.” I came back to that idea in Life is meant to be enjoyed and not endured, and after more than 40 years in human services, I believe it more than ever.

You don’t have to chase it. Live right, stay open, say thank you, and give some away. The gifts keep coming. Life is GOOOOOOOD!!!

Here’s my question for you: What gift is sitting on your doorstep today, waiting for you to untie the ribbon?

Go, Go, Go… Dan 🙂

Books quoted in this post:

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A note on anonymity: Although I quote Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous literature here, nothing in this post should be taken to imply my membership in any specific mutual support group, in keeping with Tradition Eleven.

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Reflection note: I wrote this from my own daily readings. Quotes belong to their original authors and sources (Keep It Simple, November 4, Hazelden, including Ruth Ann Schabacker, Twenty-Four Hours a Day, November 4, Hazelden, and Just for Today, November 4, Narcotics Anonymous, via Daily Ponderables; St. Gianna Molla via the Dynamic Catholic Daily Reflection, November 4; As Bill Sees It, p. 306, via Your Daily Reprieve, November 4; Psalm 16:11, English Standard Version; Hoeppner and colleagues, Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 2019, via the Recovery Research Institute; Recovery Thinking; Success-Full). I used AI to help organize it and reviewed it before posting.

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