A Short Guide to a Happy Life ~Anna Quindlen
–published 2000
–Random House
–50 pages
–4/5 stars
“Life is made of moments, small pieces of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement. It would be wonderful if they came to us unsummoned, but particularly in lives as busy as the ones most of us lead now, that won’t happen. We have to teach ourselves how to live, really live…to love the journey, not the destination.”
In addition to the desire for the mythic and the fantastical, the scent of spring in the air has also brought with it a desire to revisit the nonfiction work of authors I have personally discovered over the last few years, in particular Anne Fadiman, Nick Hornby, and Anna Quindlen.
In scouring the library catalog to add books for re-reading, like Quindlen’s excellent, How Reading Changed My Life, I saw this little gem that I had not yet read. While not profound in the “I’ve never heard that before” department, this quick read has nevertheless served to remind me of the need to consciously take the time to enjoy the simple things.
A Short Guide to a Happy Life is a delightful little package, a book filled with black and white photos commemorating simple pleasures, accompanied by Quindlen’s layperson wisdom of what life is really all about. This isn’t the kind of book a person could just pick up any ol’ time and “get”. I think one has to be in the frame of mind to truly glean everything from the common sense truth of what she has to say. But for those in that frame of mind, or those seeking a little clarity amidst the clutter, Anna Quindlen creates true beauty out of very few words.
In writing about what separates us from the thousands of others with our same degrees, qualifications, job goals, etc., she writes:
“But you are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on the bus, or in the car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul.”
I have never been one to let my work define me, but all the same my work has, on many occasions, become the sole presence in my life with its stresses and deadlines and responsibilities. Even if you are not the kind of guy or gal who believes ‘you are what you do’, Anna’s statement “you cannot be really first-rate at your work if your work is all you are” rings true.
In encouraging you to “get a life”, Quindlen touches on the things that we all know are important, but easily forget—-surrounding ourselves with those we love, being a good parent, a good friend, being aware:
“Get a life in which you are generous. Look around at the azaleas making fuchsia star bursts in spring; look at the full moon hanging silver in a black sky on a cold night. And realize that life is glorious, and that you have no business taking it for granted”.
Anna Quindlen comes by a lot of her wisdom the same way many of us do, by living with tragedy. Her mother died of cancer when Anna was nineteen, and that personal awareness of mortality (her mom was only 40 at the time) has informed the way she views the world. And she considers awareness of mortality a great gift from God. It becomes far too easy to waste time, waste our lives, to “exist instead of live” without a firm grasp on the fact that life, be it 10 years or 100, is short.
“I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back, because I believed in it completely and utterly…even though so many people may have thought I sounded like a Pollyanna. By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby’s ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because, if you do, you will live it with joy and passion, as it ought to be lived.”
I too believe “completely and utterly” in the good in the world. It isn’t that I ignore the bad, how can you? I simply try to make the choice to be optimistic, to look at the glass as half full, and to truly try to remember that life is an adventure. Do I always succeed? I think you all know the answer to that. But if I could just do what comes naturally to me at each change of the season: stop, notice the weather, take note of the beauty around me, make a conscious effort to pay attention to one good, simple thing each day, then perhaps paying rapt attention to the simple things would become the habit of my life, and grousing and complaining and wishing that somehow my dreams would come true would fade away and be something that I look back on as the way I used to act.
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My friend Debi recently changed her blog, in part to concentrate on just what the new site advertises: My Life, Plain and Simple. Although she will be the first to admit that life still has its struggles, her posts on things that are “smile-worthy” and her “good stuff” posts embody exactly the kind of outlook on life that Anna Quindlen does in A Short Guide to a Happy Life. So in large part this is not only a book review but is also an homage to Debi and her family. And in the spirit of both the book and her site, I want to close this out by listing my own recent Good Stuff:
1. Spending Saturday with Mary and Tori wandering around our favorite small Missouri wine town, sampling sausage and listening to German folk music at Wurstfest.
2. The smell…and the taste…of the apple cinnamon brats that I grilled up tonight (which we brought home from Wurstfest).
3. The new poster I picked up at Planet Comicon, the first piece that will go in my new office when we move into our new building in a couple of months:
4. The intense green apple smoothie I had with my lunch on Saturday. I waited almost a year to go back to A Time for Pie in Hermann to have this drink. It lived up to my memories and the anticipation.
5. A new episode of Castle tonight, and another new one next week! 3 in a row!
6. The best special effect ever: that big full moon blazing in a clear sky tonight.
7. Green grass and budding trees. The world is waking up again.
8. The squirrels chittering angrily at Charlie, who delights in chasing them at every opportunity.
9. The new Very Best of Enya CD/DVD combination.
10. An enormous pile of books from the library and the bookstore all clamoring for my immediate attention. An embarrassment of riches!
Now that’s good stuff. 🙂
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This book is a selection for the 2010 Support Your Local Library Challenge
What a sweet tribute to Debi, who has touched us all in more ways than she realizes. 🙂
That is some good stuff. It’s certainly a philosophy I’d love to take on board. Even though I just work 9-5 that’s such a big chunk of the day being in the office seems to swallow a lot of life.
What a lovely post. I am sitting here now making a mental list of all the wonderful things I have around me. I have never heard of this book, but it sounds like one that will pull on your heart strings and enable you to really open your eyes to the world around you. Debi will love the tribute.
ahhh if only I was an optimist! but after 66yrs of being a pessimist it ain’t gunna happen…
But I love reading Debi’s and Chris’s “good stuff” blog! I still don’t see the small stuff unfortunately or rather I see them but they aren’t enough to make me “feel better” (?) they have to be jumbo ! and I had a jumbo one a few days ago, maybe I can make myself write about it.
Anyway: it is all so true how short life is.. the older you get the more you realize it.. or you think you reaize it.. then one day you wake up and know you don’t have a whole lot longer and you truly wonder where the hell life has gone.
It’s very easy to say that and to say the quote: to stop and smell the roses along the way… and many think they are doing just that, but in reality they are not.
and to me one of the biggest reasons to come along in all my 66 yrs is: the cell phone. No one goes anywhere without it.. they don’t know how to turn it off. The funny thing is they will tell you it’s because they are afraid they will miss something (a call).. when in reality by taking those calls or making those calls while out, supposedly enjoying their self, at a picnic.. takes away from the very reason you are at a picnic.. not only do you miss the moments while on the phone but many moments after thinking about what you talked about…
When I was young.. i used to chuckle when I’d look across the street and see the elderly Italian man sitting in a chair, seemingly watching his vegatable garden growning… I don’t chuckle anymore…because he WAS watching his garden grow, because he knew it was a miracle.
Deslily: It is funny that you mention cell phones because one of the things she says about mid-way through the book is that people should do just that, take moments where you turn off the phone, be quiet, and just listen and observe. The connections that we have today through cell phones and the various social sites on the internet can make life an adventure, can open up interesting possibilities and create strong relationships…but it is still important…VITAL…to unplug once in awhile, preferably for a little bit every day, just to have that quiet time.
I hope you write about your “jumbo” stuff soon.
Vivienne: It is so easy to forget just how blessed we are.
Jodie: Work certainly does take up a huge chunk of our time, and makes me even more devoted to the idea of doing work that you love rather than just finding a place to settle to get a paycheck. Easier said than done, but perhaps now is the time to put the work in, I’ve certainly just allowed myself to be carried along by the desire for the next paycheck for most of my working life. Not that I hate my job, but it could be much more than it is with a little injection of passion.
Amanda: Debi and her family are indeed wonderful people!
This book sounds nice. I like being reminded of the good things (and I love the picture on the cover!).
That book sounds lovely. I’m a big believer in life being about the small things. Sure big things are important, but there are so many more small things to be cheerful about, and they all add up 🙂
Very nice, Carl. While I’ve never been one for the “slap a smile on your face and dance around, life is good, Good, GOOD!” approach, and I’m sure not saying this book is like that, I do appreciate it when someone points out positives. You list is a great example, and I enjoyed reading it a lot.
~ ~ an aside ~ ~ It was 86 degrees here on Sunday. Yikes! Now, thankfully, it’s back where it ought to be this time of year, in the 60s and rain predicted later this week.
I’d sure love to see your Influential Books list!!
deslily – I agree with you on all you said. It’s that point when you suddenly realize you it’s the years left, not the years lived that is an eye-opener. I guess that happened to me when I turned 60.
I find if I take the time to just sit and look, really see, that I notice the small things. I like to sit in the garden and after a while I begin to notice the small things, the way a rosebud has changed since the day before, a spider web that appeared overnight, a small lizard sunning itself on a tree branch. Another way I have of Seeing Things is to carry my camera. I don’t always take a lot of pictures, but I look at my surrounding with the photographer’s eye.
I read this too (long ago) and enjoyed it. Nice review.
Richard: yes as I aged seeing things and trying to burn them into a memory that sucks has been a chore lol.. the problem with waiting until older to reaize and start looking at things that are right in front of you but go unseen is simply that one does not know that they will live long enough to get to that stage..therefore this is something needed to be done from a younger age.but the young still don’t reaize they will die… and much sooner then they think.. and/ or the bodies start downhill to the point you CAN’T stop and smell those roses.. i really believe the cell phone (though invented for very good reasons) has been so abused as to really being an interference in ones health….
Good, no, GREAT post, Carl! The best special effect is wonderful–and REAL. As Jeff Buckley would sing, “and the moon got full, like a plate . . .). And the book sounds excellent; the cover alone makes me 🙂
Susan: It is an awe inspiring moon out there, especially where I am standing, in very unseasonably warm spring weather.
Daphne: Thanks!
Richard: I agree, I’m certainly not advocating some pie in the sky, ignore the bad and try to be giddy all the time philosophy of life, but I do whole-heartedly believe that we each have the power of choice and can exercise it to slow down and to appreciate life for what it is. If we can have those spontaneous moments where we realize just how glorious a sunset is, etc., I also believe we can make conscious choices to take time out to actively appreciate life’s simple pleasures. On the surface I think it seems easier to be glass half empty, to view things from a negative standpoint, etc. I think it “seems” easier just because people make it a habit to do so, but I refuse to believe that life is no more than us being blown about whichever way the wind carries us. Just like love and friendship are things one has to work at, to cultivate, so too is a world view that transcends merely allowing days to rush by without life being “lived”, “experienced”.
As for weather, it was near 80 here today and is supposed to get over 80 this week. While today was beautiful I am not yet ready for this high of temps. I’ll enjoy it as a foretaste of late spring/early summer and will not be sad to see the lower spring temps return this weekend.
And I will put together that list Richard. 🙂
Fence: You are right, they do add up.
Kim: I too like being reminded of the good things.
love the sentiment, but, i’m like Deslily I tend towards pessimism. Tho I do “try” to live instead of just existing, which seems to be the default setting lately.
Absolutely ADORE your poster! love it, love it, love it! ^_^
SGist: Thanks, isn’t it a fun image?!?! Can’t wait to have it framed and hanging in the new office.
Lovely post, as always Carl. Please email me. I’ve been trying to reach you.
Thanks Lisa, I’ve shot you an email. 🙂
Thank you, Carl. And, my dear friend, that thank you goes very deep. This post was the perfect gift at the perfect time. I hate to admit just how much I’ve been struggling with the optimism as of late…and I really *needed* this kick in the pants to wake me back up! 🙂
“And realize that life is glorious, and that you have no business taking it for granted.” I LOVE that sentiment…and I swear I want to stencil it onto my wall in one form or another.
And your good stuff list put such a huge smile on my face! It truly did. It also left me wondering where on Earth I might go to find an green apple smoothie. 😉
Again, thank you, Carl. For oh so many, many things.
Debi: You are so welcome. As I read the book it just reminded me of you and your site and so it was natural to take things this route. I’ll meet you at Hermann anytime for that intense green apple smoothie! The funny thing about it is, I’ve had it three different times there, and all three times the worker has given me a disclaimer of sorts. Almost an “are you sure you want this” speech. I imagine it is not the drink for everyone.
LOL–that’s hilarious! Well, it sure sounds good to me! And you’d better be careful what you promise…one of these days we will be heading out your way! 😀
Yes!!!!! 🙂