Many thanks Erik for sharing your reflections on happiness.
May I also take this opportunity to wish you and your family a very merry Christmas, happy, and healthy new year.

I especially enjoy the two comments shared today as an echo to your profound blog entry. Thank you so for these insights, wisdom, sharing and indeed contribution to our own flourishing and’ happiness.

Hi Eric, I really enjoyed these meanderings on happiness. I just returned from a day at Memorial Sloan Kettering where I had my bi-monthly MRI and Cat Scan. Often I use this time to meditate on the people I love and the things I love about them. Today I thought mostly of my daughter, Marta. This often leads to feelings of euphoria. I am presently reading “How to be Sick: A Buddhist Inspired Guide For the Chronically Ill &Their Caregivers” by Toni Bernhard. There is a fair amount in the book on finding joy. I’m now motivated to read The Clearing. Thanks! Lisa Reticker

I can see exactly what you mean, and it IS puzzling. I think achieving that sense of wellness WAS an achievement. Can it be an achievement if it was all caused by the drug? No, it can't be. So if it was all caused by the drug it wasn't an achievement. But I can't believe it was all caused by the drug. I've been reading what you have written for a little while, and probably the most important part of it for me has been the energy and intelligence you've put into understanding what is going on and taking yourself, as close as you could at any point, to the best available possible place. 'Role model' is an overused word, but you have been a role model for me. I've learned a lot about what to do if I find myself in a similar place, and even what to do right now, just plain old in my life. So I know it has been an achievement, because I've watched it evolve, before the drug. Now supposing the drug was 100% responsible for the "happiness" feeling. (Unlikely, but take it as a supposition.) It could not have been 100% responsible for the "wellness" feeling. Because the wellness feeling was what you and Janet had created and what you had created without Janet. I think it's like the difference between flourishing and happiness. And maybe it is, in fact, a form of flourishing, so it's not just an analogy but actually the thing itself. The drug might possibly have made you happy. But you made you flourish. Strange to talk of flourishing when you're so ill, but in a deeper way you are flourishing, and growing, and expanding. And, I have to say, helping us flourish, grow, and expand with you because of this blog. Thank you. - Jenny