My happy place

PACKING for a trip may take the whole day. Since my luggage looks like I’m always bringing the piano with me, I’ve never travelled light except for trips that last for only a day or two.

Summer is perfect for a vacation, with the beaches, islands, and sunny weather making it more fun in the Philippines.

The same sunny weather may convince me to opt for a staycation, though, thus the need to bring along books to read. Here’s hoping I’ll indeed have the time to read while mulling over what food to order next at the hotel’s resto.

And it took me at least an hour to choose those books. Whew. Should they include Naomi Wolf’s “The Beauty Myth”? Nah. Richard Cohen’s “How to Write Like Tolstoy”? Nope. Richard Wiseman’s “59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot”? Not.

Those three books are not the kind I’d want to read while on vacation.

I had to check out all the new books I’ve bought and finally picked these three: Gelong Thubten’s “A Monk’s Guide to Happiness: Meditation in the 21st Century,” Andrew Santella’s “Soon: An Overdue History of Procrastination, from Leonardo and Darwin to You and Me,” and Ellen J. Langer’s “Mindfulness.”

Light reading is the only criterion for books that I’d read while on a hotel staycation. These are the books whose words are simple and whose sentences don’t require deep thoughts.

Yes, I should have chosen funny books but most of the other books I’ve bought lately are hardbound. With the piano already in the luggage, hardbound books will only result to excess baggage.

The book I’m currently reading at home is Joan Chittister’s “Happiness.” The happy part of this is its bookmark which has this line: “A wise woman once said, Fck This Sht, and she lived happily ever after.”

But is the book itself making me happy? Hmmm. It’s analyzing happiness too much and here’s hoping I’ll eventually understand what happiness is.

At least this I know: the gym is now my happy place. So I guess the book has somehow helped me find that.

Without referring to the book, happiness simply depends on what makes you happy. Lucky are those who have mababaw ang kaligayahan for they will be happy forevermore.

Obviously, books make me happy otherwise I won’t be buying and reading them. If only reading them is faster than buying them, I won’t have tsundoku problems. But with Basa Books now reopened at Centrio, the more books I’ll be buying soon. Since Basa’s new location is right beside the cinemas, that’s two hobbies—watching movies and reading—in one place. Yay!

And that’s how I was able to relate with this quote from “Happiness”:

“Happiness, it seems, at least on one level, is finding out where we fit, where we are most ourselves, where there is no struggle between who we are and what we do, between where we are and where we want to be, between what we’re doing and what we really want to do.”

I’m still on page 58 of its 223 pages. I’m definitely looking forward to what else it has to say about happiness.