The almost imperceptible state of happiness.

I ran into the sun at 6.30am this morning with the unlikely heat bearing down on me, as the 30ºC heatwave engulfed every recess of my cool British consciousness. Suddenly, my face cracked, revealing a wry, understated smile, a knowing expression of the feeling that things were OK.

My old singing teacher would reccomend a wry smile as the ideal facial expression when singing certain notes and I liked that idea, because it’s a smile which doesn’t give too much away. Yet this morning, before long, the facade of the wry smile fractured and gave way to a full blown grin, as my smiling pooch sprinted past with his tongue flapping in the wind, before diving his head into the cool, dew encrusted grass.

I was happy.

Being happy doesn’t come easy. Most people will tell you that. Some people keep themselves busy to avoid being happy or sad. Even when I am happy, expressing it doesn’t come easy. A compliment, a serendipitous conversation, a smile, a nod of acknowledgement are all things that I often try to carefully assess, analyse and deploy with defensive aplomb, meaning their unique moment can pass, by the time I complete that analysis. This is an unnecessary analysis which simply gets in the way of being.

When someone first said to me “fake it till you make it”, I thought it a shallow comment. It…