A TRULY HAPPY NEW YEAR

Posted on by

Well, for me the New Year was hornless, hatless, and champagne-less.  Instead, as some crud that’s been going around here in Valdosta  thankfully got only a slight hold on me New Year’s Eve, I welcomed the new year with coughs, sneezes, and achiness.   Thank goodness for Drambui.  It beats Tamaflu going away.  Anyway, I was reading an article in USA TODAY by an anthropologist at Vanderbuilt, Edward Fischer.  He says in the article, something I learned about 25 years ago:  “For a long time we defined well-being by income.  Now what we have come to realize is it really involves all these other things….I think we get on that treadmill and we think that a little more money, a little better car, a little nicer house, that’s what’s going to make us happy…If we let those things define us, I think it’s ultimately disappointing.”

Ain’t that the truth.  How many of us have said, “If only I had ____, then I’d be really happy.”   Maybe that explains why our campuses, or the rest of our lives, are fraught with overwhelming fear and anxiety, as we run various forms of the rat race.  So, I’ll make this quick and simple.  Someone once said, “You can’t buy happiness; you can’t wear it; you can’t drive it, or drink it, or sell it, or steal it. You can’t lock it away. You can’t negotiate for it. You can’t win it, you can’t marry it, you can’t inherit it, you can’t cheat it. You can’t smoke it, or inject it, or rent it or borrow it. You can’t campaign for it or beg for it, or talk other people into giving you theirs.  You only can live happiness.  You can create it. You can be it. You can give it to others. You can enjoy it. You can share it. You can claim it. You can have as much as you wish. You can enjoy it as much as you want, at any time, under any circumstance.”

So, we ought to take care about what New Year resolutions we make.  Fischer talks of society as a whole.  It’s not much different in academia.  So, if you think tenure, renown, title, degree, and/or promotion will make you happy, you don’t have tenure, renown, title, degree, and/or that promotion.  Trust me.  I had it all, and I still wasn’t truly happy.  I started being happy when as a part of my epiphany I discovered that happiness is what you are, not what you have; that happiness is not “out there;”  true happiness is in me!  The secret to happiness is not in a wealth of things; it’s in a richness of being.  Happiness comes from mastering the art of appreciating and consciously enjoying what you already have.  It’s having a loving soul, a gentle laughter, a generous spirit, a boundless optimism, an unending hope, and a joyous life; it’s in priceless kindness, caring, and love.  So, if you want to be happy, as that is the meaning of New Year resolutions, chase more things less.  Chase more love, more joy, more hugging, more authenticity, more honesty, more laughter, more kindness, more love.  Smile more.  Hope more.  Believe more.    

When you decide to do that, happiness is yours.
Susie and I want to wish one and all a happy New Year filled with true happiness.
Louis
This entry was posted in Random Thoughts by Louis Schmier. Bookmark the permalink.

About Louis Schmier

LOUIS SCHMIER “Every student should have a person who wants to help him or her help himself or herself become the person he or she is capable of becoming, and I’ll be damned if I am ever going to let one human being fall through the cracks in my classes without a fight.” How about a snapshot of myself. But, what shall I tell you about me? Something personal? Something philosophical? Something pedagogical? Something scholarly? Nah, I'll dispense with that resume stuff. Since I believe everything we do starts from who we are inside, what we believe, what we perceive, and what we do is an extension of ourselves, how about if I first say some things about myself. Then, maybe, I can ease into other things. My name is Louis Schmier. The first name rhymes with phooey, the last with beer. I am a 76 year old - in body, but not in mind or spirit - born and bred New Yorker who came south in 1963. I met by angelic bride, Susie, on a reluctant blind date at Chapel Hill. We've been married now going on 51 years. We have two marvelous sons. One is a VP at Samsung in San Francisco. The other is an artist with food and is an executive chef at a restaurant in Nashville, Tn. And, they have given us three grandmunchkins upon whom we dote a bit. I power walk 7 miles every other early morning. That’s my essential meditative “Just to …” time. On the other days, I exercise with weights to keep my upper body in shape. I am an avid gardener. I love to cook on my wok. Loving to work with my hands as well as with my heart and mind, I built a three room master complex addition to the house. And, I am a “fixer-upper” who allows very few repairmen to step across the threshold. Oh, by the way, I received my A.B. from then Adelphi College, my M.A. from St. John's University, and my Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I have been teaching at Valdosta State University in Georgia since 1967. Having retired reluctantly in December, 2012, I currently hold the rank of Professor of History, Emeritus. I prefer the title, “Teacher”. Twenty-five years ago, I had what I consider an “epiphany”. It changed my understanding of myself. I stopped professoring and gave up scholarly research and publication to devote all my time and energy to student. My teaching has taken on the character of a mission. It is a journey that has taken me from seeing only myself to a commitment to vision larger than myself and my self-interest. I now believe that being an educator means I am in the “people business”. I now believe that the most essential element in education is caring about people. Education without caring, without a real human connection, is as viable as a person with a brain but without a heart. So, when I am asked what I teach, I answer unhesitatingly, “I teach students”. I am now more concerned with the students’ learning than my teaching, more concerned with the students as human beings than with the subject. I am more concerned with reaching for students than reaching the height of professional reputation. I believe the heart of education is to educate the heart. The purpose of teaching is to instill in all students genuine, loving, lifelong eagerness to learn and foster a life of continual growth and development. It should encourage and assist students in developing the basic values needed for learning and living: self-discipline, self-confidence, self-worth, integrity, honesty, commitment, perseverance, responsibility, pursuit of excellence, emotional courage, creativity, imagination, humility, and compassion for others. In April, 1993, I began to share ME on the internet: my personal and professional rites of passage, my beliefs about the nature and purpose of an education, a commemoration of student learning and achievement, my successful and not so successful experiences, a proclamation of faith in students, and a celebration of teaching. These electronic sharings are called “Random Thoughts”. There are now over 1000 of them floating out there in cyberspace. The first 185, which chronicles the beginnings of my journey, have been published as collections in three volumes, RANDOM THOUGHTS: THE HUMANITY OF TEACHING, RANDOM THOUGHTS, II: TEACHING FROM THE HEART, RANDOM THOUGHTS, III: TEACHING WITH LOVE, and RANDOM THOUGHTS, IV: THE PASSION OF TEACHING. The chronicle of my continued journey is available in an Ebook on Amazon's Kindle in a volume I call FAITH, HOPE, LOVE: THE SPIRIT OF TEACHING. There a few more untitled volumes in the works..

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *