It’s funny how the mind works—take mine, for example. Sunday evening, while I was covering Sally Steele’s Vegas Rocks! Magazine Music Awards red carpet, every time a rock star strutted past, one thought kept hitting me: Where’s their Happy Place? I’m betting it’s playing music—maybe right there onstage, inside the roar, plugged straight into the electricity of a crowd.
*To read about Sally Steele's Vegas Rocks! Magazine Music Awards, click < Here >
So I called my card‑playing buddy, who also happens to be one of the top shrinks in Las Vegas, did a little digging, and came up with this rock‑writer diagnosis.
A Happy Place isn’t some soft-focus fantasy—it’s that real-world pocket where your pulse drops, your shoulders loosen, and the static in your head finally shuts up. You don’t choose it; you feel it. Maybe it’s a bar booth with perfect low light, maybe it’s a stretch of desert where the wind wipes the slate clean. It’s built from memory, instinct, and the body’s quiet way of saying, “Yeah… stay here.”
What makes these places special is the charge they carry—like plugging your soul into a socket that actually fits. They’re wired with safety, nostalgia, and sensory details that hit like a favorite guitar riff. Neon buzzing overhead, the hush of trees, the hum of a casino floor at 2 AM—whatever the flavor, a Happy Place is a personal sanctuary, a backstage pass to your own peace.
I’m pretty sure every rock star on that red carpet was already standing dead‑center in theirs. Music is their oxygen, their fuel, their whole universe. Whether they’re humming a tune alone, jamming with friends, or standing under the blaze of a sold‑out crowd, the second they’re wrapped in the sound they love, they’re home.
My Happy Place? Same one I’ve lived in for 58 years: writing. Every time I sit down and start stringing words together, everything clicks into place and the world feels right again.
Where's your Happy Place at?
Gary England
