How to Be Happy, Dammit!

You must declare your own Independence Day, then your own Independence Year, then your own Independence Life. The purpose of your life is to find the purpose of your life.

This means: you must listen to your heart, listen to your belly, listen to NPR—but you must stop listening to your shmarents and your shmriends. (After all, just look at their crazy fruit trees!)

You realize: being who you want to be, and doing what you want to do, is self-respect. But that's not all, folks. It's also one of your Pot of Primordial Stew Club Membership Duties. Something even your Pot Mate the flower knows to wisely cash in on. A flower instinctively goes toward the light. It doesn't spend time worrying if people will mistake it for a weed or if it's taking too much sun. It wisely and simply follows its primal flower gut instincts to attain its highest level of flowerosity.

Conversely, you—and your busy, busy brain—have been programmed to think, think, think—and so you have been ignoring your heart's instincts. Just like that eagle in its chicken days. It's when that eagle finally followed its heart that her life finally began to soar.