So does Disney have a monopoly on this concept? I suppose a rabid Disney fan would say absolutely, yes! However, what exactly makes a place happy, or even the happiest? What are the characteristics that qualify a place as happy? Is it the fact that you are having fun? Perhaps it is rather an escape, away to get away from life’s concerns? Perhaps it is more about that childlike ability to just play, bounce around with reckless abandon until you come crashing down and need a long nap.
Thinking this through, I am leaning more toward the state of mind. When you set aside a place to go where your entire aim and function is to have joy, then you have it. A happy place. So those that think Disneyland is the happiest must have this view. This is the place where their entire state of mind is having fun, being happy, being with family and friends.
Which really has me pondering this thought. If we are capable of changing our state of mind by just going to a physical place, why can’t we change our state of mind anywhere we are at? What if our own living room was really the happiest place we could be? I saw a picture of my daughter when she was a toddler dancing around our living room in a costume of her own making. She was in her happiest place, but then again, anywhere she went was her happy place. This was her state of mind.
So happy is childlike. Can we be that way more often?
Guy
Being child like and keeping that sense of awe and wonder is something we should all hope for (even if just for those few precious moments when we experience it)