Sometimes you seem to leave messages for your future self. I found this scribble in a box of 20-year-old documents I was sorting through.

In the moment of your birth you began to learn to breathe, inhaling air, exhaling; crying at first; it was as new to you as you to the world. But you had an instinct for it. What didn’t come naturally came before long through learning — when to breathe and when not to breathe, and when to breathe in and when to breathe out. I assume this is all true, because you’re still alive.

And yet the strange thing is, you’re not happy. I wonder why we don’t have the same instinct for happiness we have for air. We know somewhere that once a moment’s joy is in us we have to let it go again lest it turn stale and choke us . . . yet it seems difficult to turn this knowledge into action . . . as if we spent our days turning red in the face and moaning about letting the moment’s breath go.

So learn: Each moment of joy is that moment’s joy; it cannot be grasped without halting the flow of happiness by which you live. Breathe it out, use it for speech or for song, but at all events, do not seek to squeeze it within you and suck up more without letting the old air go. Learn to breathe again.

Happiness is like breathing. You cannot hold a breath for long lest it turn stale and choke you, but you learned to breathe it seems . . .  You must also learn to exhale this moment’s happiness and allow the next moment’s joy in.

(Update: Since people seem to like it, here it is as a printable PDF.)

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