Life is not always happy, and for that reason, joy and gratitude are vital to me. They remind me of the goodness in human beings and the beauty in the world, despite what politicians and the media tell us. They lift me when life brings me down.

I begin most mornings by thinking of the small goods and pleasures of life – a nice message in my inbox, the smell of fresh bread, the quiet hour,  a promising new novel, a fantastic movie, the warmth and spirit of Maria next to me in bed, a kiss from one of the dogs, a visit from Zip, the soft bray of the donkeys, a sweet photograph I didn’t reasonably expect, a picture of a new Leica lens I can never afford, a beautiful sunrise, the successful rehabilitation of my foot, a lovely image of my granddaughter Robin taken by my daughter Emma, a dreamer who captures her dream.

My quiet hour is the perfect time to pursue gratitude. Silence at any time of day is a spiritual exercise in itself. Gratitude for small things helps me see life from a happier and more balanced perspective. We are only fed the bad; we must find the joy ourselves.

Learning to be grateful for the small things in life makes it much easier to find overlooked but genuine joy. When most of us believed in God, it was easy to think of the goodness in the world. Now, it feels like we are on our own. I’m ready for that.

When I ended up in the hospital for a bleeding brain injury and concussion a month ago, I thought about the very sick people all around me who would who might not recover from their illnesses and untreatable pain. They felt hopeless; it was in their eyes, while I had hope.

I never doubted that I would be well.

My injury was treatable, but theirs was not. I would recover, but they couldn’t. I was going home in a few days; they might not.  I made the choice early to be grateful in that surreal place, not fearful or sad or angry, even though I was told I had nearly died.

I’ve learned that it isn’t the great big pleasures – fame, glory, money, a new car, a new camera – that count the most; it is making a great big deal out of the little ones: the smile on a Mansion resident’s face when he gets a book he wants or shoes to keep him warm or the joy of a refugee child who can go to college and pull her family out of loss and ruin because I helped her, watching a classy mystery, or some custard squash that Maria makes.

Joyfulness is a choice, a state of mind that can either be ignored – cynicism, suspicion, grievance – or embraced and remembered. Lying down in a hammock with a good book can be as joyful as a Thanksgiving family dinner or a merry Christmas. It’s my choice. When joy is missing from our lives, so is any kind of God or peacefulness we might wish to embrace.

E.B. White, whose writing from his farm in Maine inspired the Bedlam Farm Journal you are reading, once wrote: “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world.”

Me too. Like White, I realized that I needed to do both. I decided to stop pursuing pleasure and love with such haste that I hurried past it and missed it altogether.

We are bombarded with troubles in our lives; it is easy to forget the importance of happiness. It takes some work, but it has been transformative for me.

I am grateful for my brain bleed and concussion and for all the pain it caused; that is the truth. This frightening thing helped me to understand what I had, not what I had lost. Gratitude is an attitude.

I get to recover every day.

As I look around me, I seek to find the joy in others. I cherish the people who know joy and rarely am comfortable around those who can’t. Sadly, those are the people so many choose to follow. I’m ok going my own way.

I trust the people who know joy and not those who don’t.  I am drawn to the people who understand what it means to ignite and reignite the flame of deep happiness before the candle goes out and can’t be lit again.