Tuesday, November 20, 2007

There's never enough happiness

In which your humble correspondent explains to you the secret of happiness...

As a writer, I am fueled by happiness. No, not the mind tripping, day at Disneyland variety, but the average run of the mill everything is running smoothly variety. I have never been able to work when I am sad or angry or just bothered - hot or cold. In order for me to go visit my writer's place, I need to be sure that the regular world is going along just fine.

And so, it occurred to me as a passing fancy the other day, that if I could only just be happy all the time, then I could get a lot more writing done.

Phhfft! Fat chance!

Other than living off a steady supply of prozac or other narcotics, there is absolutely no way to be happy all the time... or is there? As human beings, we have been searching for the source of true happiness since time began. We have tried love, money, drugs, magic, religion, and all sorts of other remedies, but we've never quite gotten that one thing that is the source of true happiness. True and lasting happiness doesn't exist, does it?

So what chance did I have in finding true happiness if nobody ever had enough happiness for themselves. Happiness, then, being a commodity that we all like to hoard for ourselves and we can never get enough of it. And that was when I made a breakthrough and discovered the secret.

We can't be happy all the time because true happiness can only be given, not received.

Think about it. What have you done in your life that guaranteed you happiness? Nothing. Not one thing. You have been happy in the past, sure, but where did that happiness come from? Someone else. If it was that pony that you wanted as a child, that your grandpa gave to you as a birthday present, suddenly you were extremely happy. Did you get the pony yourself? No. Had you gotten the pony yourself, would you have been happy? Probably not, unless the struggle to earn the pony made you feel that you were lucky to have it - that someone or something had provided it for you. So happiness can only be given, and the only way to get happiness is to have it given to you.

So, how do you get enough happiness to last a life time? You give it out as much as possible. The more you give, the more you receive.

Darn, that God was sure clever to invent a system like that, virtually guaranteeing that we would be nice to each other... if only to be nice to ourselves.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Happiness comes from within, as cliche as that sounds. That's God's point, I think. The external world will always fail us. Thus, we must rely on God, inside of us for contentment.

Happy Thanksgiving, Dude. I expect you to be rooting for Mizzou on Saturday night.

Cheers.