Eudaimonia Journal

It was well past my usual lunch time and I was confronted by an underwhelming existential dilemma. My blood sugar was screaming in diabetic rage. Should I wait twenty minutes for two reheated slices of almost mediocre pizza or drive five minutes more to a decidedly better pizzeria in the next town over. I chose to do the latter. After four minutes of deep pondering I ordered an eleven inch craft pizza with the robust red sauce base. I decided on mozzarella, feta, and asiago as the cheeses and I was delightfully satisfied. I decided on the healthier options: roasted peppers, mushrooms and olives. I completed my order with artichoke hearts and broccoli. My arteries and pancreas thanked me deeply as well. I purchased a slightly above room temperature sparkling water to wash it all down.

I dined on the pizzeria patio in the early spring cool shade. Two middle school kids sat caddy corner to my table and were mockingly taunting each other with sibling filled adolescent angst bellowing irritating sounds and gestures chanting “we are hungry!!!” repeatedly to their vacant eyed phone zombie of a father. Mom finally comes to the rescue from inside. Pizza boxes fly open and the two adolescents descend on the pizzas like a pack of feral ravenous hyenas and with the veracity of a school of piranhas.

I sat and relished eating my Mediterranean veggie pizza undisturbed in absolute culinary rapturous bliss. I could choose to be the grouchy and curmudgeonly grumpy geezer that is my default setting but I chose to take the high road. I could empathize with the little pizza sharks as I felt my glucose levels achieving normality. I decided to enjoy the simple pleasures of the weather and good food relative silence after the teenagers had their pizza remedied existential crisis.   Sometimes small choices matter for our quality of life and mental health. I chose not to be annoyed, I chose to enjoy the simple pleasures rather than engage in subjective mind games against myself. My chattering subconscious was not invited to my therapeutic culinary “me time.”

Why do we willingly allow ourselves to sacrifice our own contentment to pettiness and temporal imaginary trifles? Are our fragile egos harmed by anything which actually threatens our personal self confined reality bubbles? I could imagine Sartre rolling his one good eye in faux indignation at me while sipping on his apricot cocktail.

Considering everything that actually annoys you. Where were you actually physically harmed? Can you show us on the proverbial dolly where it hurt you? Probably not, but don’t also superficially psychological wounds also hurt our minds and egos? Perhaps but annoyances and traumas are world apart in differences and effects. Small wounds only require small measures to heal; traumas require that we reroute and repair our path to healing. It requires making informed and educated choices for ourselves and not giving into our insular emotional triggers.

Jean-Paul Sarte would remind me that we have to choose to be happy and work towards living a fulfilling life. We have to choose to be joyful. As Albert Camus stated, “we have to imagine Sisyphus happy.”