“I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live.” – Ecclesiastes 3:12
Back in the 60’s and 70’s during his heyday I was a big fan of country singer Roger Miller. Many may remember him for his hit song “King of the Road”, but for me it was the nonsensical lyrics he so masterfully wrote like “Do Wacka Do”, followed by a little “root doot doot doot do-wah”. What I loved about those nonsensical lyrics was . . . well, sometimes they actually made a lot of sense. Consider my all-time favorite that goes like this: “Oh, you can’t roller skate in buffalo herd, you can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd, you can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd, but you can be happy if you’ve a mind to. All you gotta do is put your mind to it, knuckle down buckle down do it do it do it”.
Who in the world would even think up such a silly idea as rolling skating in a buffalo herd except, of course, do-wacky-do Roger Miller? It’s so absurd, in fact, it makes absolutely no sense, except that it does when you listen to the rest of the verse. And that’s the whole point of the song, that even in the midst of life’s absurdities “you can be happy if you’ve a mind to. All you gotta do is put your mind to it, knuckle down buckle down do it do it do it.”
Happiness is like love in that attaining it and retaining it is much more deliberate than it is circumstantial. That is to say it happens because we choose it – we put our mind to it – much more than because life hands it to us. I’ve told this before about when my brother and sister-in-law celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary their grandson asked how they managed to stay married for fifty years, to which my brother offered this simple yet brilliant response. “You just do,” he said. In other words, living together and staying in love all those years – being happy! – does not just happen because you’re lucky. It is because you choose for it to be so, “knuckle down buckle down do it do it do it”.
As wise King Solomon once said, “I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live.” And you can be happy if you’ve a mind to.