BAFOON IN THE MONKEY SUIT

Last weekend, like all of our weekends, it was a loaded one.  Hockey practices, hockey games, painted a room, carved pumpkins, finished  Halloween decorations, made chilli for guest coming over Halloween night – just to name a few.  Sunday morning I went to my son’s hockey game for 9:15 am.  I’m sitting in the stands waiting for the kids to go on the ice and I see this bafoon in a monkey suit walking in the lower part of the arena.  He goes into the other team’s bench and I realize he’s the head coach.  I sat there for a moment and thought, why the hell is this guy wearing a Gorilla suit, then it dawns on me – its Halloween.  The only person in the whole arena wearing a Halloween costume.  At first I thought he looks like an idiot and an idiot he did look like!  He then scanned the crowd, I’m not sure what or who he was looking for, when he scanned my area I gave him a thumbs up, for which he rewarded me with his hands up and beat his chest.  I guess he was looking for some kind of approval or attention.  I mean wouldn’t you, you’re the only guy in the crowd in a gorilla suit and no one is paying attention.  After watching the first period of the game, I realized this guy in the gorilla suit is not such an idiot.  Our team kept skating by and staring at him and before we knew the gorilla suit guy’s team was up by 3 points and we scored a big fat 0.  The gorilla suit guy kept giving hand signals and jumping up and down, excuse the pun, like a monkey and his team just kept coming fast and pounded us.  By the end of the game the score was 6 – 1 for the gorilla team!  I guess you can say the last laugh was on me.  When the game was finished everyone piled onto the ice, gorilla and all, to shake hands and do the respectable thing.  I didn’t have my camera and it was one of those Kodak moments.  Everyone shaking hands in the lineup and here is gorilla suit guy giving everyone a high-five.  You’ve got to give that man an a for effort – effort that paid off!

HAPPINESS

A man I work with is on a happiness mission.  He has started a blog dedicated to happiness.  He started a happiness circle on google and all staff members were invited to join.  Everyone in the happiness circle gives their various opinions on the subject and we all try to figure out if we’re happy or not.  Like the night I came home and yelled at my kids instead of breathing and talking to them in a more appropriate tone, did I yell because I’m not happy or am I happy but I had a moment of rage?  Are happy people allowed to have a moment of rage?  If happy people do have a moment of rage does that make them truly unhappy people?  Are truly happy people so oblivious to anger and negativity that they are always smiling and happy and truly grateful for everything?  Is this even normal, I mean I think I’m a relatively happy person and I do take the time to smell the roses, but is it possible to be in a complete state of happiness all the time.  This is the point of this project at work, the person who started the project is putting it out there and getting feedback from people on wholeness and happiness.  He sent out a survey asking different questions about happiness and work.  A high percentage said they were happy to go to work.  Of course I had to go into the google circle and leave a comment ” did only happy people fill out this survey”, which a few responded and asked what do you mean?  I then had to explain myself a little clearer.  I’m happy to go to work, I’m happy to have a job that pays the bills and I like the people I work with.  I guess you can say I’m very grateful.  But what I do at work is not what I’m about, I have other passions and avenues I would like to explore and find it difficult to explore these avenues because I work full-time and I have two young boys and a husband at home.  If I didn’t have to work I would have the time to explore some of those avenues, but putting food on the table has to come first.  I read somewhere that if you’re not doing the things you dream of doing now, you’re just making excuses.  Could be true except there are only so many hours in the day and the older I get the less energy I have.  Lately, I’ve come to think of happiness as a choice, you can either accept and be grateful for everything you have now and trust in God’s wisdom that you are on the right path or you can look at everything in a negative tone and keep looking through a tunnel where there seems to be no light.  I for one am choosing happiness, not happiness where I’m oblivious to the negative things in my life and appear to be in la, la land.  No I’m a realist but somewhere I’m balancing the two sides and everyday I try to breathe in the moment and enjoy this time I have with my children and husband and remember that nothing stays the same and change is an eventuality – good or bad – change happens.  Let’s just hope the change can be embraced in the most grateful and happy way.