Happiness

 "The United States is the unhappiest it’s ever been.

The 2019 World Happiness Report says that Finland remains the happiest country on Earth for the second year in the row, while the U.S. drops to No. 19, its worst ranking ever (it was No. 18 in 2018 and No. 14 in 2017)."

Peanut and I were out in the yard this morning when we came upon one of our baby birds dead on the ground.

Our birds are in a closed bird box, that hasn't been opened in several days, fairly high off the ground.

Our best guess is that this little bird tried to fly too early.

They are due to fledge for several more days.

Peanut, immediately crying says, "There's his Mama. Why didn't she stop him?"

I'm going to share - this particular set of birds has been very similar to my experience in raising teenagers.

For several days we thought all the eggs had hatched. Eventually there was some shifting and we learned that they had been hiding one unhatched egg all this time.

I've found my teenagers not to be fully forthcoming with information.

Then, even though I'm sure this Mama bird said "It's not time. " "Don't try to fly." "You are not ready."

This bird went anyway.

My heart goes out to her. Raising strong willed birds who constantly want to fly is hard on a person.

I desperately want my own birds to listen to wisdom.

To take guidance.

To wait on His timing.

My birds think they know it all. They don't ask for help, they don't seek good wisdom. They are inpatient.

They jump before it's time to jump.

I was reading this week on the Gallup Poll. "The U.N.'s happiness rankings use one data point from a massive survey known as the Gallup World Poll. That data point comes from a question that asks people in more than 150 countries to rate their lives on a scale of zero to 10 -- with zero being the worst possible life and 10 being the best possible life."

There's some disagreement about whether we should call this the "happiness poll" or "life satisfication" but I think most agree that it's about how individuals perceive their own lives.

I was interested to find that this year, in 2021, we rank 14 in the United States.

We ranked 18 in 2020.

Does anyone else find it interesting that a pandemic raised our happiness quotient?

And that the year before the pandemic we had the lowest score in decades?

I'd like to think that struggles and challenges force us to re-evaluate.

Maybe we once thought our life was a 6, but now after witnessing devestating loss, and communities that did work together to help take care of each other, perhaps we now see our 6 was really an 8?

As much as I'd love to build bird boxes with no holes, and keep my own baby birds from all this nest jumping, I know that struggle and challenge is important.

We've become a generation of parents who helicopter. Who don't let our kids struggle. Who solve all of their problems.

We're the people who call schools to complain rather then empowering our kids to take direction and respectfully try to navigate their own struggles. We exert more effort trying to keep our kids from consequences than teaching them how to accept responsibility for them.

We're the people who tell coaches how to coach rather than allowing our kids to face the consequences of their actions and learn how to be coachable.

We're the people who end friendships for ourselves and our kids rather than insisting we be people who can have hard conversations and face truth.

The thing is, if by the time our kids are teenagers, if they have not had enough experience picking themselves up off the ground - then they won't know how.

And whether you think they will or not, your kids as teenagers are going to jump before their ready.

You've either let them fail enough that they'll know what to do what it happens, or they won't be able to get back up.

If we want to raise "happy" kids, we have to teach them that struggles and challenges are part of life.

They have to be able to have the perspective that yes, this bad thing happened. I fell.

But I've fallen before, and I've gotten back up. I'm capable.

Mama Warriors, Peanut and I started our day with a funeral for this bird she named "Bert."

It broke my heart to find that bird on the ground because I know it's another loss for me. For her.

Another time we've seen a glimpse of hope, of new life, and yet another time, that we've been confronted with hard truth. Sometimes there is death.

I didn't hide this bird from her. I showed her the bird, we mourned the bird, we buried the bird.

Because shielding her from unhappiness now, does not gift her a happy life.

Teaching her to navigate the hard, the challenging, the sad - tells me that she can.

Better yet, tells HER that she CAN.

We've buried losses before, both people and animals, and hopes and expectations.

Because of these challenges, I've gifted her perspective.

I've gifted her skills.

I've gifted her the opportunity for happiness.