What Really Makes You Happy?

A happy writer sounds a bit like an oxymoron. The two words are sort of incongruous or at least… this is the way it often seems, but writers like everybody else have many things that make them happy.

As of late the list of what makes me happy seems to be dwindling or at least my ability to do the things that makes me happy. While writing is always top of my list, being able to hang out with friends or go shopping are two things that never fail to make me happy. But being that the friends I have who aren’t in college are working, it’s difficult to find time to hang out with them.

The happiness that is found in hanging out with friends and shopping is fleeting. It’s moments of joy yes, like the moment you open a new laptop and set everything up for the first time. Or the time you do the same with your phone. The anticipation of such things last far longer than the joy of when you actually get them. I once read something that suggested it was better to want something and never give it to yourself so that you could savor the anticipation and maybe that’s partly true.

I also know that there’s nothing quite like literature to soothe the soul. Falling away in a good book whether you’re writing it or reading it is unlike anything else I can think of.

Out of curiosity I would like to know… what makes you happy? (Beyond the obvious of writing?) Is there any sort of guilty pleasure that really never fails to make you smile?