Happy is as happy does, my Granny used to say

• An old Donovan song offers this little bit of wisdom, and maybe that’s all we need to know: “Happiness runs in a circular motion … da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-dee-dee-dum." Sorry for the last bit, but I couldn’t remember the lyrics and I wasn’t about to pull out the old LP from the garage just to verify. In any case, the point was the initial sentiment because I believe that sentiment to be truthful.
  
  Happiness does run in a circular motion rather than in a straight line as in: “Only if (this) would happen, then I would be happy.” No you wouldn’t. You’d be happy initially if it did happen, and then you would move on around the circle rather than in a linear fashion.
  
  I only mention this because Saturday’s Globe & Mail newspaper devoted an entire section on the weekend to “happiness” and our quest for it. Indeed, our whole societal ethic today appears to be based on people being happy. Everything from cars, to cosmetics, to foodstuffs, to Viagra, to nostrums for cranky bowels (because it’s never a good time for diarrhea) are based on the beliefs that if you don’t have an alluring vehicle, aren’t looking beautiful, aren’t eating trendy and tasty stuff, can’t get it up, or live in fear of a nasty accident, then you are unhappy, and the items advertised will make you happy.
  
  While it’s true that all of the aforementioned might improve some aspect of your life, they won’t make you ‘happy,’ because happiness is a state-of-mind.
  
  I’ve mentioned before that I had a much-cherished uncle who was completely crippled and blinded by a severe form of rheumatoid arthritis that had assaulted him in his late teens. This guy, when I knew him, was not only well-adjusted, he was essentially ‘happy’ in the true Platonic sense of the world. Within his limitations he had a sense of well-being that I still often envy. He was, in fact, much better adjusted than his brother – my father – whose bits all worked just fine.
  
  In other words, my uncle had found an inner peace of the sort that should probably be what our quest for happiness should entail. And that is something that no product, no government intervention, no blissful sexual encounter, and no trip to exotic lands will bring about.
  
  We have a certain misapprehension that God, Allah, Whoever or Whatever you believe in, created us to be happy. No He-She-It didn’t. We were created to just ‘Be’, with the rest being up to us. A little blind-luck being thrown in is always nice, too. Do we think the kid of a beggar in Calcutta says to his folks: “Gee, I’m not very happy. What can be done about this?”
  “Sorry, kid. Life’s a karmic crapshoot and somehow it seems not everybody gets to live like a maharaja. Now, get out there and beg your little heart out.”
  
  But, I do know what makes me happy. Not ‘all’ the time. Life is like that, but I do find a general contentment from (in no particular order) the following:
  
  1. Being alive
  2. Being relatively healthy
  3. Being largely free of addictions (does coffee count?)
  4. Being in a loving and honest relationship
  5. Living in a generally progressive and tolerant society
  6. Having an education
  7. Being relatively intelligent
  8. Living in a low-crime neighborhood
  9. Having a sense-of-humor
  10. Not obsessing about things I can do nothing to remedy, but doing something about the things I can.
  
  And, that’s about it. For me. For today. I have no idea about what tomorrow will look like.
  What are your keys to happiness?