DAY 206 - HAPPINESS VOX POP: DEE DEE JOHNSON - ACTOR, MUSICIAN, CHALLENGE-SEEKER... WITH A DELIGHTFUL SENSE OF HUMOUR

Day 206

I was born in a pretty regular Northern Ontario small town where I received a bilingual education.  I graduated at Queen's University in Music.  For 10 years, I worked for the Federal Government in Ottawa at various and ever encroaching “upwardly mobile” well-paying jobs.  I left to retrieve what was left of my sense of humor and to discover what the world of performing arts had to offer.  I became a waitress for about 5 minutes.. I didn't last because of spilling problem.  I auditioned for one role and got the job.  Fast-forward 20 years.  It's been a great ride so far and despite the precarious nature of the gig, it's still the best gig in town.

What is happiness for you?

 Playing with the people I want to play with and making the thing we want to make together.

Has your profession impacted your level and your vision of happiness? If yes, how?

 Definitely.  I chose it BECAUSE it made my happiness.  But so much of the time it makes me VERY unhappy.  It's strange... I seem to love the struggle.  It is like loving your misery...

Has your vision of happiness greatly changed through time?

 I had one great switch in my life, which was to make a conscious decision to say “No”   to what was “expected” of me and then do what I “decided” to do.  Seek my bliss, was what I thought.  Since then, life has taken on a more gradual shift... like the wrinkles in my face.. ha! All earned.  All what they are.  My view of happiness is changing though... shorter term goals... probably because I'm actually starting to see how much time I have left here.  Still, if I can't laugh in a day, I must have done something wrong.

Do you believe you have control on your level of happiness?

 See above... yes definetely

You can look at life in so many ways.. I do try to be optimistic...I'm probably hardly ever successful at it, but I do try to DO the things I want.  I think that's a big part of it.  It you can't “control” your life... or at least a part of it, it's very hard to find any happiness.  Think about people though... they will find happiness in the most “unlikely” places.  But if you've lost your entire family to a tsunami or an earthquake or crazy forest fires eating up your house or your husband beats you or you have to sift through garbage to make your way or you have cancer or aids or you're trapped by what ever other evilorhorriblethingthatexistsinthisworld... shit..I don't know.. that stuff will really test you... I don't  know how I would deal with that personally.... Wow I just realized I was asked about happiness and all I spoke about was misery and “unhappiness”  … what does that mean? Yin Yang?

What do you do to change your mood when you’re feeling sad?

I look at myself in the mirror and I cry my eyes out.

Aka...I allow the sad and then I buck up and get on with my day...

On the whole, would you say you are a happy person?

 I think I WANT to be a happy person. I think I am very successful at “putting on” the happy person.  But to tell you truthfully, I'm not even sure what “Happy”  means.  Truly... I have been “contented”,  “satisfied”, “proud”, “awkward”, AND  “happy” some days.  But generally, I'm more questioning and confused and reacting... I am never “happy” constantly, like a “settled” thing.  Life is so transient and changing, how can you be anything but what you are at this moment!


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