Two things collided this past week. Cecilia will soon graduate from middle school which led, naturally, to conversations about what she will do this summer and how she might need to start thinking about college prep. This led, naturally, to stress and unhappiness.

Talk of the approaching summer also led to discussions about what we, as a family, are going to do with my sabbatical time. Are we going somewhere? Doing something? Experiencing something? How will we maximize this rare opportunity? This led, naturally, to stress and unhappiness.

I realized later (while not sleeping because I was stressed) that no family is happy all the time. It’s impossible and probably not healthy. Happiness is like a wheel, we cycle through it. It comes and goes, but it doesn’t exist for us in the past or the future. Happiness only exists in the present. So we shouldn’t let the future come at the expense of what is right in front of us.

If we want to be a happy family, we should prioritize just being together. It doesn’t matter where. It’s sort of that simple. And that attainable.

The trick, of course, is holding onto it, because just as you grab it, the wheel keeps turning.