Monday, June 15, 2015

All the Happiness One Could Want



My charger for my laptop was returned.  For several weeks it was visiting North Carolina where I went last month to help a friend.  What do bloggers do when they don’t have power?  They tweet (@ScienceyAutism).

Wonderful one-liners fill Twitter.  They reaffirm the work my husband and I are doing with our son, TsukiMoon.  Things like; “Start you child’s day with love and encouragement and end the same way. “ -- Zig Ziglar.  “The only disability in life is a bad attitude.”  --Scott Hamilton. “  “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf.”  --Jon Kabat-Zinn  They assist the rigmarole.  Nice when I start to dream about taking some time to walk the Santiago de Compostela for a month.  

How do to create happiness out of the daily succession of tasks where the solution isn’t to run away to Spain or look for puffs of inspiration found on Twitter.  To take satisfaction in what can be mundane?

Much of life with autistic kid, especially on challenging days, can be a grind, but that is exactly where solution resides, in the dailiness.  I don’t think why I’m do something but how to have a job well done.  

Honestly, if I ask a “Why?” question it usually ends in misery.  There are no good answers that come from a why.  Think of some why questions, what do you come up with nothing good I bet.  “Why” shuts the door on potential.  It doesn’t even look at it.

“How?” is a much better question.  “How can I get this done?”  “How can I help?”  “How can I enjoy this?”  How questions create opportunity and industry.  There are endless possibilities in how.

What I have discovered, only since our son’s diagnosis, is that if I am focused on myself it only brings anguish.  If I center on others all the internal-bleak voices are silenced.

Most of my life I’ve been trying to full a goals set by society and coming up with a lot of bad answers to “why” questions.  So much of our world seems to target an outward expression to describe the inside of a person.  “Be Thin!”  “Be Rich!  “Look at me I’m happy, my pictures of Facebook say so!”  

I never had the long legs I dreamed of, there was never enough money, and I asked myself Why?  Well you must be a loser was the best answer that I came up with.

Raising an autistic child has been about: how to find the things that create happiness that money can’t buy.  For me yoga brings inner peace.  There is nothing better for me to hang out with friends.  My number one goal is to live in a a loving, peaceful home.  I take pride in personal responsibility.  This list is not sexy but deeply curing.  


Now I feel totally happy, successful, feel like I contribute to the betterment of the planet.  None of this came from more money or growing 2 inches. This is a blessing of autism, a fuller, better-lived life.  That sounds like it could be posted on Twitter. 😄

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