What? Me, interview you?I'm going to start posting interviews with amazing and insightful people who inspire me! Hopefully I'll post one per week, but who knows how it will work out. And here's my first interview!! Tada!!
It’s only fitting that the first happiness interview I post here is with someone who has brought me joy and happiness since 8th grade…my best friend, Kelley. Kelley is a screenwriter in sunny California. Yes, that’s right, she’s living the dream. She left her high stress job as an actuary in Boston to pursue a career that she might actually love one day.
Kinda cool, huh?
We’ve had a long relationship that has changed a lot over the years. Our friendship has survived:
* middle school (and braces!),
* high school (as nerdy academic/math team girls with a flair for theater!),
* living together as college roommates (BTW, living with me while I was in college was not a picnic, so kudos to Kelley for weathering that harrowing year of me never doing dishes, laundry, or pretty much anything other than studying!),
* living near one another in snowy (aka the frigid arctic) Boston,
And now we are long distance friends who persevere against all odds (seriously, a 3 hour time difference is all odds!) to stay friends.
Kelley is someone who finishes my sentences, which I really appreciate, since I have a bit of a word-finding problem. On a more serious note, she has also dealt gracefully with the recent death of her mother, and has somehow maintained faith and a (sometimes sick!- she made me say that!) sense of humor.
Here are my questions followed by her answers to some happiness questions:
1. How do you cheer yourself up when you're feeling blue?
I watch movies. This is also what I do to fill the time between waking and sleeping. :-)
When I'm the mad-shade of blue, I might also run or exercise. Also, list-making of how I'm going to get back on track helps. The biggest thing I do when I'm blue is I get myself away from my blue friends! We all have them, and when I'm feeling half-empty instead of half-full, the half-empty people get rescheduled. My half-empty would otherwise be poured into THEIR half-empty, and what good does that do? THEY still see it half-empty even with my last remaining drops! Retail therapy used to be a good fix, but now I hate shopping, so that's out. It's more of a cold-weather sport, if you ask me.
2. What have been the happiest experiences of your life so far?
I'm still waiting for them!
No... In general, I don't like BIG moments, so I'm far happier in a tiny little moment where I have a good conversation with a friend or when my dog does something cute. So "happiest" is a big word that stresses me out to think about. Graduation or a Wedding is enough to send me to the asylum, thus I'm getting married in Vegas and only went to the two graduations I had to attend out of the four. :-)
3. What is something small that you do regularly that makes you happier?
It's stupid, but exercising. If I don't run for a span of 5 days, even if there's a good reason, I start to get down on myself and think that I'm not moving forward in my life - since I run on a treadmill, the running isn't literally moving me forward, but you know what I mean. This is for selfish happiness though. Ultimately, I think the best happiness and more substantial kind comes from giving to others. Be it free room and board, paying my dog-walker a little extra, or remembering someone's favorite treat from Starbucks and surprising them with it, things like that pay you back in smiles and fill you up far more than just a normal moment would. In the long run, these things end up being selfish too because what greater joy is there than for someone to tell you you're such a nice person - and you actually know the things you did that made them say that!
Can you classify your friends as half-empties or half-fulls? What do you think your friends classify YOU as?
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