Words

“Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.”

—Maya Angelou

When I was in high school, my English teacher asked us to write a paper about Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken.  I spent hours trying to decipher what every word meant.  There HAD to be a more obscure meaning.  A secret code. According to my teacher, we, as readers, are supposed to dig deep to see how the words make us feel.  It felt like she was asking us to read his mind.

After we turned in our papers in, she shared that someone once asked Frost what the poem meant to him.  Had any of his readers cracked the code, deciphered his hidden message about the meaning of life?  Frost responded that he had been walking in the woods, saw two paths, wasn’t sure which one to take and always wondered where the other path would have led.  It was a literal description of a walk.  No hidden message.  Not the secret for a better life.   I felt so tricked by my teacher that I pretty much gave up on poetry. 

But I did not give up on words.  My new favorite book is, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, by John Koenig.  He describes it as “a compendium of new words for emotions.  Its mission is to shine a light on the fundamental strangeness of being a human being - all the aches, demons, vibes, joys, and urges that are humming in the background of everyday life.”  The dictionary is full of “new” words made by combining words from different languages or resurrecting words long gone and giving them new meaning.  It is funny and heartbreaking and lovely.  Most of all, it gives the reader the opportunity for a different perspective.  And creative words for describing emotions where we feel like “there are no words.”

One of the first entries is:

Kairosclerosis

 (n.) The moment you look around and realize that you are currently happy - consciously trying to savor the feeling - which prompts your intellect to identify it, pick it apart, and put it in context, where it will slowly dissolve until it is little more than an aftertaste.  

Ancient Greek kairos, a sublime or opportune moment + sclerosis, hardening. 

Pronounced kahy-roh-skluh-roh-sis.   

I burst out laughing.  Partially because I have a problem with the word “happy.”   An emotion that we are all supposed to achieve based on the advice of marketers, who spend billions of dollars trying to convince us that we are not happy, but their product can solve that for $9.99.  How can anyone BUT me know if I am happy or not?  Or what happy means to me? 

What made me really laugh, however, is the truth that as soon as I determine that I am in fact happy, I immediately start wondering why.  It isn’t that I don’t believe in happiness or think that I am not worthy of it.  It is simply that I am afraid it will disappear.  Worse, I try to find reasons why I KNOW it will.  The negative bias we are all hard wired with starts to take over and I “pick it apart, put it in context, where it will slowly dissolve until it is little more than an aftertaste.”  Wow.  I do that. 

This isn’t something I consciously recognized until I encountered this definition, but once I did, it stopped me in my tracks. I found myself sitting with it, quietly wondering what it reveals about me. I’ve long believed I can be my own worst enemy, and perhaps that belief comes from the way I sometimes seem to undermine my own happiness. Maybe happiness feels unfamiliar, so when it shows up, I don’t quite know how to hold it. Instead, I examine it too closely, looking for flaws, as if doing so might protect me from the disappointment or pain I assume will follow when it inevitably fades.

What would happen if I simply observed happy?  Noticing it the way I might notice the weather…...without bracing for what comes next? What if I let it exist without interrogation or defense? Robert Frost (again) reminds us, “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”  Perhaps, when it is allowed, happiness does too.  Neither permanent nor fragile, just passing through as life does.

Emily Dickinson wrote, “Forever is composed of now’s.” Maybe happiness doesn’t need to last forever. Maybe it only asks to be lived, fully, in this now.  Living in the now isn’t passive, it’s participatory. It’s the willingness to notice subtle shifts in thought, feeling, and perspective, and to choose presence over prediction. These small, almost invisible moments are not insignificant; they are cumulative. They are how a single “now” quietly becomes a forever.

Frost’s walk was just an observation of the options available to him in a moment in time.  No further analysis needed.  Not everything in life needs an explanation or an answer.  We cannot know what tomorrow will bring.  Ever.  And all our worry about it will not change a thing.  Observe happy.  Revel in it.  And then let it go until it rolls around again.  No need to pick it apart, it just wants to be noticed and appreciated. 

Much love,

Lisa

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Lisa Hamil is a founding member and host for The SOS Collective, an online international women’s recovery and support group.  However, this blog and any classes or coaching offered by Lisa Hamil LLC are separate from and not affiliated in any way with The SOS Collective.