mortality check – an experience when, upon being confronted with a massively life changing event, one begins to question what is actually important in life.

When you visualize happiness, what do you picture? Is it a feeling of warmth and security? Are you making it rain with hundreds in a Scarface-type mansion (hopefully without the weaponry) or is your idea of happiness something simple?

My impression is that happiness is a very similar thing for most people no matter their background. After we wade through the nonsense that we think makes us happy – the stuff that we are tirelessly working for that just clutters our lives, I think most people come to a pretty similar conclusion. We want peace. We want to be with the people we love. We want everyone to be healthy and happy. It’s relatively simple. Think back to a few cherished memories. Are you remembering people, places, and experiences or are you remembering material things? The memories that come to mind for me are incredibly simple times with close friends and family; watching the news in the evenings with my grandparents, enjoying ice cream bars with my dad, snuggling with my babies, laughing with siblings after the kids are asleep during family vacations. My happiest memories come from moments of heartwarming nostalgia. Happiness is a very simple endeavor, but if we don’t look back on our happiest memories with an air of striving for a new generation of such simple happiness, we are in jeopardy of being caught up in the daily minutia of excess, of thinking that instead of our relationships and experiences bringing happiness, unneeded indulgences will.

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