Worth Noticing

I had one of those nice little moments yesterday. My temp job sent me to the 20th floor of an office building downtown. I left work about one minute before five, and I wasn't surprised that it took a few moments for the elevator to arrive (it's a high-traffic time, after all). One of the elevators went "ding" so I turned to face it, and when the doors opened there were about five people inside all smiling right at me. Just the biggest old grins on their faces, all warm and friendly, looking right at me. I don't know if some joke was told, or if they thought it was funny that the elevator was stopping at every floor, or if they were just generally happy that it was 5pm and Monday was over. Whatever it was, when I stepped on that elevator I couldn't have stopped myself from smiling, and passing it on to the next person who joined us. By the time we got off the car was crowded full of smiling people, some even chuckling about the many stops and the tight squeeze. When we got off we all went our separate ways, got on with our days. But that little box full of geniality, even just for a minute or two, was the closest I've ever been to a real-life Happy Machine!

I'm reading Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf to pass the time, and she had a few of these types of moments today.

What she liked was simply life. "That's what I do it for," she said, speaking aloud, to life.

Sometimes, all it takes to enjoy life is simply noticing that life is worth enjoying. Not that life is all roses. Sure I don't have a real job, and I'm pretty much poor, and I don't know what my future holds, but I still like going about my business, and being with people, and singing, reading, watching, eating... generally I simply enjoy being. Now, without my handy SSRI's I would have considerably less of an even keel. Some days are harder than others, especially down here near the bottom of the food chain, but it doesn't take a profound understanding of the world to be content. Happiness is really worth it.