My Turn with The Happy Bright Travelling Books

A way to pass on your sunshine and unburden your sorrows

Ali Hall created four “large, luminous notebooks with ‘PICK ME UP’ scrawled on the front.” She placed the books, safely wrapped in waterproof casing, in random places throughout the UK.

The Happy Bright Travelling Books contained 36 questions intended to provide readers with “enlightenment, humor, and inspiration.” Hall hoped answering the questions and leaving the book in a new location would also give recipients the opportunity to pass on “some of their sunshine and unburden some of their sorrows.”

Hall imagined the books would travel around the world creating a beautiful, random, and intricate web of human connection.

But as it turns out, the books disappeared into thin air. Although they contained an email address with an invitation to reply, Hall never heard a peep from a single person who had encountered one of the four books.

Hall recently came across the file with her notes from the launch of the Happy Bright Travelling Books.

She thought: Why not try again? We could send the books around the world via the internet!

I agree. It’s time to resurrect the Happy Bright Travelling Books! I want to be part of the wondrous experiment! So, I’ve answered a selection of the book’s questions below.

I invite you to do the same.

My Answers to The Happy Bright Travelling Book Questions

I would love for you to get to know me a little more by reading my answers to 13 of the 36 possible questions in The Happy Bright Travelling Book.

Here I go…

1. Complete the sentence, I wish I could… • wave a magic wand and enlighten everyone. Enlightenment might seem like an abstract concept, but it simply means living from awareness rather than your conceptual mind filled with attachment and aversion. I believe enlightenment is possible for everyone. The first step is to become more self-aware and positively intentional. If enough of us do this, that itself could create a radical change in society.
2. What three things are guaranteed to make you smile? • My cats, watching families enjoy themselves at the park, a person smiling at me.
3. What is the best feeling in the world? • Honestly, letting go of thoughts and emotions and flowing with what is. I can’t always do this. When I do, it’s so joyful and liberating.
4. Tell us about the best day of your life. • Today. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow has yet to arrive. This reminds me of a quote from the Dalai Lama: “There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called Yesterday and the other is called Tomorrow. Today is the right day to Love, Believe, Do and mostly Live.”
5. What are the most important things in your life? • Possessions aren’t so important to me, but I am exceedingly grateful for my home. My friends and my cats are very important to me as is self-awareness, integrity, and continual learning.
6. Have you a motto or a favorite quote, which you try to live your life by? • Many! I’ll share the first entry in a Commonplace Book I have just started: “Let what comes come. Let what goes go. Find out what remains.”—Ramana Maharishi
7. If you could be anyone or anything in the world, what would it be and why? • I’m content being me.
8. If you are sad or down, what do you do? • I read uplifting words, go for a walk in nature, or sit with the emotion until it dissolves.
9. What puzzles you most about the world? • Cruelty and greed.
10. What do you secretly pray for? • Peace for myself and others.
11. How would you like to be remembered in life? • Someone who cared. Someone who inspired others. Someone who wrote words that helped others heal and grow.
12. As a child, what did you want to be when you were older? • I didn’t have any particular wish as a younger child. By the time I was a pre-teen, I wanted to be a writer. I enthusiastically read “Writer’s Digest” in the library, learned how to type, and tried my hand at crafting a query letter. I didn’t actually write any content though! Despite my aspiration, I didn’t become a writer until many decades later when I worked as a freelance writer for businesses and non-profits.
13. What book has had the greatest influence on your life? • I have misgivings about the author, but I cannot deny The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying had a profound influence on my life. I was present when many of the teachings in the book were delivered so I’ve had multiple doses of the content, which has deepened my understanding of Buddhism. Buddhism will always influence the way I see the world and how I function within it. But I like to think I’m not limited by Buddhism. I find similar ideas in other spiritual traditions as well.

Be Part of the Happy Bright Travelling Books Too

If you’d like to be part of sending the Happy Bright Travelling Books around the world by writing a story on this platform, read Ali Hall’s original post, right below:

And please follow these requests:

• “write a story in answer to all the questions or a select few, use them as a writing prompt
• include the tag #HBTB
• tag Ali Hall (@Ali-Hall)
• tag 2 other writers to encourage them to write their own story in response to these questions
• link to Ali’s original story to encourage others to get on board the Happy Bright Travelling Books adventure.”

Let’s do this. Let’s weave a web of connection like the world has never seen before. I’m inviting talented writers Trista Signe Ainsworth and Kristina God to get onboard the Happy Bright Travelling Book train by writing their own story. #HBTB

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