The pursuit of happiness

Had an interesting chat with a couple of coworkers this afternoon. I asked one of them how he was doing and he said, “Fantastic”. I confess I was taken aback. Who is ever ‘fantastic’? That’s quite the nomenclature. My other coworker professed to be apathetic, and asked if I was agnostic and we then went off on a brief religious bent, before circling around and having him settle with ‘content’. I came up with ‘tired’. Then Mr. Fantastic said that being simply ‘fantastic’ was actually a step down for him, he is normally ‘excellent’. This led to fervent debate as to whether we ought to live each day as an excellent ten out of ten day (because where can one go from there?), or whether it was better to be complacent with brief respites of happiness.
I must confess that I did have two rather illuminating moments of beautiful happiness in the past couple of days: the first was when I didn’t wake up dead this morning; and the last was when I discovered someone had made coffee this afternoon. Kidding! I am nowhere near that morose. No, last night whilst I was out for my jog I came home and the sky was this amazing lavender color tinged with pink and I felt awed and appreciative. And then this morning as I walked to the bus stop all the colors seemed very vivid and lush (probably due to light and reflections and low clouds or something technical), and even though rain was imminent, my world was a very visually stimulating place at 7:55am. Also? The myriad of fall leaves slowly disintegrating on the damp sidewalks create a rather beautiful patina, though it has me staring at the ground as I stroll to and from my bus stop these days.
As for the happiness conundrum, I think complacency is lame. Mr. Fantastic hit the nail on the head when he said it’s a way of thinking. I know I tend to lean towards the pessimistic though I have been working diligently to be more of an optimist (you should have seen how Zen I was when I had to wait through three lights to make a left off 4th Avenue onto Arbutus over the weekend: I was one step away from Buddha, folks). I don’t think I will ever be at a point where I can say that I am fantastic or excellent on a daily basis, but I don’t think I ever want to be there. Day in and day out it would be agreeable if I could say that I am content, bemused, amused and eager. Interspersed with shots of ecstasy, uncontrollable laughter and the occasional reason to sport a Cheshire cat grin, of course.