New Age Bliss on the Way Home

What a great feeling it is to catch your bus - after a hard run of two or three blocks, dodging overburdened Christmas shoppers, icy air burning your lungs - then the moment of triumph: settling back in a seat, enveloped in warmth, to catch your breath as the bus steams past lighted shop windows in the gathering dusk.

Good first sentence for a short story? It sort of came to me yesterday on the bus and I got out my notebook to write it down. An old man across the aisle looked like he would have liked to know what I was writing. I wish it had been something more profound. But no, just what I was feeling at the moment.

A good motto for happiness, I think, is to live in the moment. Also, don't compare yourself to others, and remember to appreciate what you have. They're easier said than done, especially the second. But when I manage to do them, I am, however briefly, perfectly glad to be who and where I am. I once heard a yoga teacher say, "It is a privilege to live in these bodies." It's a little New Age for my taste, but I liked it anyway.