It's so simple sometimes

I'm on RA doody all weekend, which means I'm on call 24 hours a day. This morning someone called because she wanted to return the keys to her room (she moved out) and I explained that she just needed to fill out a form and drop the keys into a box by the door. She retorted that she did not have a pen, so she wanted me to bring her a pen. Yes, I had to get out of bed and go meet this person at the office because she did not have a pen. You might say "it's your job", but I think that's the point where we get too techno/bureau-cratic. It's like the other time someone called me at 3am because he needed to get into the building and left his ID card in his room - by the time I got out of bed, dressed and to his building, he was already inside because people go in and out all the time. Wouldn't it be great if people were more considerate? My sleep wouldn't be so interrupted all the time.

But the point of this post wasn't to complain so much as to reassert that happiness can be pretty simple. After that little thing in the morning I came back and slept and slept and slept. It's almost 6PM now and I'm still in my bed and it's great. Eating in bed, drinking in bed, watching TV and listening to music in bed. Nothing else really matters right now. After having very little bed time for the past month, this is like the best thing ever. And it seems consistent with what we know about the brain - it's responsive to changes. You just have to change shit up and then you can feel good. A day in bed every month or so = bliss. Stock up on chocolate, nutella, raisin bread, tea/coffee and half&half (with condensed milk?).

Maybe tomorrow I will clean my room, and that will be something to feel good about. There are some objects that haven't been moved since I moved in 4 months ago (and I keep tripping over them on a regular basis).

To summarize: Arete - yes, that's the goal in life, right? But aside from that lofty abstractness, we should try to vary our behavior. As Howie mentioned, a good life can be characterized by discriminative stimuli (he said it more eloquently, I'm sure). And as I say now - "be the discriminative stimulus you want to see in the world".

...And don't call for someone to bring you a pen.