When I was a teenager, my mother gave me a little book of poems with wisdom about happiness. One of those poems spoke about how happiness comes to sit on our shoulder when we are not looking. It comes just as a butterfly softly sits on our shoulder unexpectedly.
One day while walking on the beach, the poem came back to me when a pretty piece of sea glass caught my eye sparkling in the foamy surf.
I have noticed that I find the best pieces of glass when I see them with a glance by happenstance. Then later during my walk, as I turned my head to look out at the ocean a brown thing bobbing in the waves caught my eye. At first, I thought it was a log but then it did not move the way wood moves in water. I looked more carefully again. It was a seal bobbing up and down, swimming and playing in and out of the ocean waves. I was not looking for wildlife in the moment when I saw the seal, he was just there just like the sea glass, I glanced and there was the seal.
Those are blissfully happy moments that come so softly and yet poignantly, just as a beautiful butterfly quietly sits on one’s shoulder. My walk on the beach that day reminded me to listen and watch for the good things in life that bring happiness and contentment in the golden moments of life.