Fingerpainting

I read once that the tragedy of growing up is that you start school with a box of 64 crayons, and you end with a Bic pen.  How sad.  I think this is a key driver of why so many adults feel unsatisfied.  We need to play more.  I referenced in a prior post that while catching up on news after returning from the honeymoon (ahh, the honeymoon) I saw four reference to happiness in the media.  I read the NY magazine article and have a couple of observations I would like to record.

• Regarding therapy, I think if people spent more time looking into what makes them happy as opposed to what makes them miserable, we would all be better off as a society!  Sounds like a simple idea.  Start with small things and fill up your day with as many of them as possible.  Think of each day as an empty jar.  It can be filled with crap pellets (speaking of crap, there is an actual town in Italy called Crapolla.  I wonder if they are miserable?)…or it can be filled with chocolate pellets!
• The idea of ending each day with a gratitude journal sounds terminally corny, but oddly tempting.  I shall try it.  People say it’s addictive. 
• One other crucial point, in my humble opinion, is that as adults we feel unsatisfied often because we don’t DO anything.  We are not ACTIVE participants in the world, at least not as much as we were as kids.  My inner liar is yelling “Rubbish!”  but it’s true.  Adults observe more often than make.  We LOOK at art, we WATCH movies, we READ books.  These are passive activities.  How about making movies, acting, and writing?  Times they are a changing, for sure.  The Internet is allowing everyone to be an author (very broadly defined of course), a broadcaster or a movie maker.  Interestingly, these are all digital activities.  As kids WE were the painters, we acted in plays in our basements, we wrote stories, we built stuff.  Why not as adults?  Because we more often than not live off of the fruits of others. 

Everyone has a voice.  Find yours again.  I say, break out the fingerpaints!