Pat Bean's blog

          “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. Mahatma Gandhi

          One of my Christmas gifts this year was a Table Talk game featuring prominent women on one side of a card and a question on the other side. It’s not as much of a game as it is a conversation ice breaker.

           One person pulls a card from the boxed deck, reads what it says, and then everyone, in turn, answers the question. It’s a way of getting to know people better.

          For example, one question in an earlier Table Talk version I own, asks if you were to lose your sight or your hearing, which sense would you keep.

Eyes, I responded, without even thinking. I’m a very visual person and can’t imagine not being able to see Mother Nature’s many wonders. The next person, who is daily inspired by music, said she would keep her ears.

          I was gobsmacked by the answer. Although there was no right or wrong answer to the question, I had thought everyone would have wanted to keep their sight. To hear a different answer stretched my own understanding of people’s differences.

          Meanwhile, I’ve been using my newest Table Talk deck that focuses on women of achievement as a journaling prompt to better explore my own thoughts. This morning I pulled out the card featuring Shirley Temple Black, who was a child star in the 1930s and ‘40s, and as an adult served as a U.S. ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia.

I had an immediate answer to the question the card posed: If you were to be an ambassador, what country would you choose to represent?

 Bhutan, I thought, because its government’s goal is Gross National Happiness.

          While I wondered if that really works, I hoped so. It would be nice to know there was one country where success was measured by a happy population. I’m not sure anyone in America is happy right now.

          Pat Bean is a retired journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon, and is always searching for life’s silver lining.