When I was a kid the most dreaded question a grown-up could ask was: What do you want to be when you grow up? I was in an existential crisis about this my whole childhood, and for a good part of my adulthood, too.

My answer was always the same: “I want to be either a bartender or a nun.” Needless to say, this answer was met by no small amount of hilarity. I really didn’t understand why.

I went to a catholic school taught by nuns and I loved them. I loved the outfit especially: the veil, the lariat of rosary beads around the waist, the flowing, cavernous sleeves. I wanted to live in the clean, quiet convent with the holy water fonts, the statues and the prie-dieus. I wanted to organize my day around mass and prayer and teaching lovely students such as myself.

But after school I would meet my mother at Rocky’s Tavern where she religiously attended Happy Hour. It took a while for my eyes to adjust from the bright light of the school day to the cool, beery, darkness of the bar, but soon I was cozily nestled in my booth, working on my homework. Within seconds, a cherry coke in a tall frosted glass and a basket of pretzels would appear in front of me: My “usual.”

Just like all his other customers, Rocky knew my drink. He would engage me in some conversation--about school usually, and then continue his circuit around the bar, making sure everyone was set up, happy, engaged, talking. In Rocky’s bar everyone knew each other, even if you were there for the first time. Rocky was a maestro. He orchestrated his bar as expertly as Leonard Bernstein conducted the New York Philharmonic, blending, harmonizing, bringing some voices in, quieting others, in a concert of community. I wanted to do that. I wanted to create community and home and happiness, just like Rocky.

But I also wanted the quiet contemplative life of the nuns. I wanted mass and incense and hymns. (And, I wanted the outfit.) I wanted to be both. I wanted to marry the nun and the bartender in myself. I wanted, in effect, to be “Sister Mary Happy Hour.”

The ritual of Happy Hour is much more important than most people realize. And I’m not talking about just the Happy Hours that bars run, with discounted drinks, etc., though they are good too. But a “Happy Hour” can be any ritualized and fairly strictly observed hour set aside for relaxation, happiness, community and connection.

It can be meeting friends every Thursday at a coffee shop for a game of Trivial Pursuit. It can be sitting on the deck with your spouse in the evening, talking over the day in front of the chiminea. It can be watching the river flow as your line drifts in a trout stream. It can be your weekly yoga class. It can be any activity done intentionally, and ritualistically, that brings you joy and a feeling of connection with yourself, your loved ones or your community.

So if you don’t do Happy Hour regularly, maybe now is the time to start. All it takes is an intention and the discipline and dedication to clear your calendar religiously each day, or week, and schedule in some serious “Happiness-Time.” And if anyone gives you a hard time about this, tell them Sister Mary Happy Hour told you to do it.

Amen.

Kathleen Thompson is the owner of Main Street Yoga in Mansfield (www.yogamansfield.com) where she teaches Kripalu, vinyasa and power yoga. All classes at Main Street Yoga count as “Happy Hours.”

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