Hiatus until August 5

This blog will be going on hiatus until August 5, as I take care of some delightful life developments.

This space filler is here for happy reasons.

Quote of the Week: Montesquieu, on Happiness

"If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are."
-Montesquieu

Wednesday Writing Exercise
Write a short scene (<300 words) in which a character exhibits this type of jealousy.

Quote of the Week: Gill Robb Wilson

The Constitution of America only guarantees pursuit of happiness-you have to catch up with it yourself. Fortunately, happiness is something that depends not on position but on disposition, and life is what you make it.
-Gill Robb Wilson

From Forbes.com

Wednesday Writing Exercise
Write a short spoof (<300 words) on what happens when you catch up with happiness.

Quote of the Week: George Bernard Shaw, on Happiness

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.
-George Bernard Shaw

From Forbes.com

Wednesday Writing Exercise
Give a short summary (<300 words) of a modern-day example of this concept: either producing more than consuming, or consuming more than producing.

Quote of the Week: Publilius Syrus, on Happiness

No man is happy unless he believes he is.
-Publilius Syrus

From Forbes.com

Wednesday Writing Exercise
Write a short scene (<300 words) introducing a character who should be happy, but obviously isn't.

Quote of the Week: Hosea Ballou, on Happiness

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.
-Hosea Ballou

From Forbes.com

Wednesday Writing Exercise
Write a short backstory (<300 words) for a character who has counterfeit happiness, and doesn't realize it yet.

Quote of the Week: St. Francis, on Sunbeams

A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.

-St. Francis of Assisi

 

From Forbes.com

Wednesday Writing Exercise
Write a short scene (<300 words) based on this quote. You can:

• describe a setting
• describe character interaction
• introduce a new character

Quote of the Week: Hugh Black, on Happiness

"It is the paradox of life that the way to miss pleasure is to seek it first. The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self. As a matter of experience, we find that true happiness comes in seeking other things, in the manifold activities of life, in the healthful outgoing of all human powers."
-Hugh Black

From Forbes.com

Wednesday Writing Exercise
In less than 300 words:
What do you seek that brings you happiness?

Quote of the Week: Jorge Luis Borges, on Paradise

I had always imagined paradise as a kind of library.
-Jorge Luis Borges

From Forbes.com

Wednesday Writing Exercise
In less than 300 words:
How do you imagine paradise?