Happiness Choices: Loving the Rain

"Happiness researchers go around asking people if their lives are happy. They've noticed that when they ask on sunny days, people are more likely to say their entire lives are happy, whereas if they ask on rainy days the wet weather changes their entire global perspective on the state of their existence. (Though if people are told to consciously reflect on the day's weather, the effect goes away.) " David Brooks, The Social Animal, Random House, 2011, 237.

"Though if people are told to consciously reflect on the day's weather, the effect goes away." That is, the effect of sadness goes away if people are told to consciously reflect on the day's weather. Or perhaps is is the effect of weather disappears, period, if one reflects. But not for me.

I happen to take joy from the experience of the natural world as I consciously reflect, as I simply notice.

I'd not, myself, discovered the above mentioned research, but I've experienced the effects described, happy in sunshine, dreary in darker days. Some things that I've noticed about finding good cheer on rainy days:

Rain is not uniform.
There are times in a rainy day when the fall becomes light to non-existent.
The smell of rain, and the sense of moist air on the skin, are possibly delicious.
The colors of the world become more subtle on rainy days, and possibly glorious.
Sounds change as moisture in the air changes, I may hear the day anew.

Wearing wet clothes depresses the spirit. Take appropriate actions to mitigate this problem. Think about it and make the arrangements ahead of time. Neither an umbrella nor a rain coat will keep feet dry.

Seems to me that learning one's own process for noticing and being happy in all weather is inextricable from the process of nurturing strength of spirit. And strength of spirit is necessary not only for sudden misfortune, but also for the ordinary, routine, grinding-on daily aches and pains and sadnesses that creep over us if we allow. I, for one, choose to notice the happiness of sunshine, and also to love the rain.