Oh, Happiness

Yes, happiness. If you've seen the picture, which you surely have by now, you might be wondering why a dandelion of all things is chosen. It's a boring, commonplace weed that ruins your lawn. Your perfect garden is now ruined by this intrusion.

As a child, I hated it when people pulled up dandelions. I was told such things as, 'They're untidy.' and 'They ruin the lawn. Don't you want nice grass to play on?'

Ummm... no. I'd much rather had the dandelions, thank you very much. I love their complexity. It's fascinating, all those yellow petals against lush green. Then they magically, or so it appears, turn into little fairies umbrellas which floated away in the breeze.

Anyway, I chose the dandelion as a comparison for happiness because, I deem it the flower most looked down upon, most despised, most under valued flower ever.
But it's the most cheerful.

Look at it, really look, with no prejudice. Doesn't it lighten the heart? When you step outside and see all the little glints of gold and silver amongst the green doesn't it make you smile? At least on the inside anyway.

We humans have taken away the beauty of it. Why? I don't know. Somewhere we began labeling it as a nuisance and began to forget the beauty that belongs to it. And even though we continue to uproot it, tear at it and make a general fuss over getting rid of it, it always comes back, as though trying to prove that we need to remember the beauty of life, instead of insisting it's all gone wrong, just cause there is a dandelion cheering up our lawn. Like we can't bear to see the cheerful golden head blowing in the breeze.

How sometimes, the sight of a smiling face sends us into the darkest regions of our soul. How if we are down, we can't bear others to be happy, so we try bring them down to our level of sadness, instead of raising ourselves out of our sorrows, we would much rather make another miserable.

I'm guilty of it.

So, I've decided to try be a dandelion. To be as happy as possible, to find the best in every situation. To get back up when I've been hacked to pieces. To bear through my times of sorrow with perseverance, knowing that it shall all get better. That there will be another flower of gold, always, somewhere.

Here's the link to Oh Happiness, a song by David Crowder*band. One of my favourites.