By Kathleen Colburn –

I’ve been thinking about happiness and happy thoughts. –

That’s a lot of thoughts! Over the six months that I’ve been writing this column you might say I’ve been encouraging good thoughts. True. But there’s an unnecessary and unhealthy weight on our culture around happiness. Certainly we want happiness in our lives. Happy thoughts can carry us through stressful days. I’m suggesting being relaxed about being happy.

In mindfulness practice we are taught to allow and observe all of our thoughts without attaching ourselves to them. This means even the non-happy thoughts. Seems to take the pressure off the quest to be happy. Less pressure might even cultivate more happiness! How nice.

Think good thoughts!
And be okay with the rest!

Kathleen Colburn is a whole foods personal chef with over 30 years of experience. She is Rapid River Magazine’s Short Stories editor and a freelance editor available for a variety of literary projects. She can be reached by email: rrshortstories@gmail.com.