Michelle Blanchard Ardillo

What positive emotion do you feel most often?

The lyrics of the 2013 hit “Happy” by Pharrell Williams really do answer this question for me.

Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
Clap along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do

In 2013, when this song came out, it was all over radio. On my way to work I would hear it several times a week. The tune is very catchy, but even more than the tune, the words began to speak to me. At the time I was in sore need of some happiness.

I began teaching in August of 2007, just a week after my mother had passed away. Louisiana, my home state, was still reeling from the effects of Hurricane Katrina in August of 2005. We had returned from living overseas for two years in July of 2004 and for the next three years I had worked for the Archdiocese of Washington on the staff of my parish church, the Shrine of St. Jude. I had experienced a lot of change in a very short period of time.

The principal who hired me in May of 2007, who gave me my first full-time teaching job, left the school after my second year of teaching. A new principal was hired, and he was a breath of fresh air. He was hands on, in and out of the classrooms all day, joking and friendly as a rule, but firm when required. He was great at putting a stop to things that may have festered under the previous administration. He didn’t tolerate bullying, gossiping, or in-house arguing. The kids loved him, the parents loved him, and the teachers loved him. Going to work was a joy, because we all felt supported and appreciated. What more could you ask?

Well, as the old saying goes, in real estate, the most important thing is “location, location, location.” He lived on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and was driving back and forth every day. His wife finally presented him with an ultimatum: “the school or me,” since she just knew he would eventually fall asleep at the wheel and have to be fished out of the Chesapeake Bay. Naturally, to our deep sadness, he chose her.

We had an interim principal for a few months, a faculty member, while a search committee found a new principal. Once she came on board, there were a lot of changes in just about every single area. As a whole, morale in the faculty was soon down, and the students could feel it. I felt myself struggling to stay positive, even though I loved teaching and I loved my school.

Over the summer of 2014, I searched and prayed for a way to bring back the happiness in my life. I decided that I would make “Happy” my classroom theme song for the 2014-2015 school year. I had it on repeat every day, blasting from my classroom during homeroom, during lunch, during dismissal. The kids loved it, and they sang and clapped along. The mood of the room would shift as soon as the song started, and to my amazement, my mood shifted as well.

That Christmas a student gave me a beautiful ceramic cookie jar filled with Italian amaretti cookies. We finished those off very quickly and I displayed the cookie jar in my kitchen. It was beautifully decorated in the Italian fashion with bright yellow lemons, rich dark green foliage, and blue ribbons painted on it. It made me happy just looking at it.

When Christmas break was over and I had to return to teaching, I made a New Year’s resolution to write something down each day that had made me happy, that had brought me joy. I put a stack of small yellow note cards next to the cookie jar and every day I wrote out my moment of happiness and put it in the cookie jar. Often these were very small things, like I didn’t hit any red lights on the way to school, I was able to drink my coffee while it was still hot, I had finished a good book, etc. At the end of 2015, I nearly cried when I read each one of those cards. They were each like a warm hug reminding me of how important happiness had become to me.

So, in 2015, I took it a step further and started using #findthejoy on all of my social media posts, emails, and correspondence. I was determined to surround myself with happiness and joy. Over the course of that year, I tried harder to not gossip, to let things go more quickly, to try to find the positive in all that was thrown at me. I still look back at 2015 as a year when I think I experienced the most personal growth.

In May of 2017 I was approached about a teaching position in my own parish school, the school my daughters attended, attached to the church our family attends each and every Sunday. It was a difficult decision, as I truly loved my colleagues at my first school, and I loved having had a history with so many great families, teaching each of their children in succession, sometimes five or six or seven of them over the course of the ten years I taught there. But, eventually, I decided to make the change.

In August of 2017 I set up my first classroom at my new school, which was anything but new to me. There were several teachers still on faculty who had taught my daughters. I had been in and out of those classrooms since the mid-1990s, up and down those halls as room parent, president of the Home and School Association, member of the Advisory Board, and finally substitute teacher from 2006-2007. It was like coming home in the very best of ways.

My happiness and joy followed me there and I soon realized what a great decision it had been to change schools. I loved teaching even more, and I made some very good friends of my new colleagues.

Today I am still very happy. Since retiring in January of 2024, I’ve come to love the freedom that comes with retirement. I can read more, write more, travel more. I have the time to send birthday cards and thank you notes on time. I can decorate my house for the different seasons. I can try out new recipes and plan out healthier meals for my husband and me. I can swim laps and exercise on a regular basis. I can just be me, and as Pharrell sings, be “like a room without a roof.” The possibilities are endless!

The moral of the story is that we control our own happiness, even when the worst of things happens to us. We make the decision each and every day how to approach life, the ups and downs of it. Yes, sadness will fall upon us all, difficult things will occur, but it is how we react to them that will be the deciding factor in whether we are happy or not. Sometimes you have to just make the happiness happen, even when it is as simple as playing an upbeat song and singing along. #findthejoy #happy

It might seem crazy what I’m about to say?
Sunshine she’s here, you can take a break
I’m a hot air balloon that could go to space
With the air, like I don’t care baby by the way

Because I’m happy (happy)
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
Because I’m happy (happy)
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
Because I’m happy (happy)
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
Because I’m happy (happy)
Clap along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do

Here come bad news talking this and that
Well, gimme all you got and don’t hold back
Well I should probably warn you I’ll be just fine
No offense to you don’t waste your time
Here’s why

Because I’m happy (happy)
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
Because I’m happy (happy)
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
Because I’m happy (happy)
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
Because I’m happy (happy)
Clap along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do

Bring me down
Can’t nothing
Bring me down
My level’s too high

Bring me down
Can’t nothing
Bring me down
Let me tell you now

Bring me down
Can’t nothing
Bring me down
My level’s too high to

Bring me down
Can’t nothing
Bring me down

Because I’m happy (happy)
Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
Because I’m happy (happy)
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
Because I’m happy (happy)
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
Because I’m happy (happy)
Clap along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Pharrell L. Williams

Happy lyrics © Warner-tamerlane Publishing Corp., Emi April Music Inc., Bmg Rights Management (uk) Ltd., More Water From Nazareth, Write 2 Live, Waters Of Nazareth Publishing, Universal Pictures Global Music, Bmg Rights Management (uk) Ltd