Chasing The Promise Of Happiness

I have chased happiness for a long, long time.  I have looked for people who were happy only to find they really weren’t.  Gurus, teachers, spiritual leaders, friends, partners.  You name it.  And I’ve run into my share of struggle and loss.  I have tried to make sense of it and the more I thought I knew, the more life taught me that I didn’t know much for certain at all.

Happiness is a promise, right?  Isn’t it?  How do I know that?  I don’t have a clue.  Maybe it was all the fairy tales that said they lived happy ever after.  Or the movies with happy endings.  Or the TV shows of perfect families or at least if they weren’t perfect they always managed to work things out.  Or the hippies or the acid or the new age books on the subject.  I have had the distinct feeling from the beginning that a successful life means to find happiness.

When I was small my brother and cousins and I decided to do a play for the adults – mostly our mothers.  We put up a big sheet in the living room and they all sat in chairs to watch.  I came out in front and announced “The name of our play is Life Never Came!”  They all split their sides laughing until they cried and the play went downhill from there.  A little truth from the mouths of babes.

Now I am over 60 and getting a little wiser.  I know now that answers are not really the answer.  Questions are the important thing in life.  Staying open.  I am still chasing this thing called happiness.  I don’t really intend to stop.  But I don’t run as fast as I used to.  I stop and smell the roses along the way and am satisfied with one moment at a time.  I know that I do not know.  I don’t pretend to know.  I shy away from people who say they do know.  I am still learning and it may never end.   My life has been messy and my family is in pieces and I am no where close to retirement.   I wrestle with loneliness and I treasure good friends and laughter.  Sometimes it seems like that is really what life is all about.