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If happiness can truly be achieved, and it is not just an illusion as one might think, how is it come by?

Some might describe me as happy. True, some people would also describe me as weird and I have withstood some accusations of drugs, but those who actually know me describe me as happy.  See, happiness is a funny thing. It’s a sort of carelessness, a joy that cannot truly be attributed to anything because it’s just there. Worst thing about it is, like anything else, it is an emotion that can be seen in a person’s eyes.

I don’t know how to find happiness. If I had an answer, it would be no use anyway because I would instantly have about a million critics and people would listen to them long before considering my side. But, regardless, if a single person got something from this impromptu article it would be worth writing.

Most people attribute certain things to happiness that have done nothing to earn that respect. Money, firstly, though it is excellent for comfort, is not a source of happiness. Wealth is unstable. No one can be truly happy with instability.

Power. People think that to achieve great power and influence would make them happy because, inevitably, all anyone ever strives for is happiness. World conquest, some think, would make them happy, would make them fulfilled, but even if one managed to take the world, happiness would still be elusive.

People drink, have sex, try drugs, have children, earn money, study to achieve greatness, all for a certain satisfaction that inevitably, they think, will stem to happiness. When they find happiness, as many do in their families, they try to find ways to keep it, thus some people would love to live forever.

But every attempt falls short. Everything one does eventually leads back to that hollow feeling of before, that empty need for something called happiness. But it is oh, so elusive.

Again, though, what is happiness? Why is it so hard to come by when we try and try and try, putting forth our best efforts, to get it? And this is the lesson we learn from children.

Unless circumstances force them to grow up to fast, children are the absolute personification of happiness. As I said before, happiness shows itself in a joy in the eyes. From the first moments they are born, infants eyes are lit with this amazing beauty, this ethereal quality that is astounding. Ever day that I look at my little six-year-old brother, I see this same sort of brilliance in those beautiful eyes. I don’t even really know how to describe it. This was also something I found amazing about the children I saw in the
Dominican Republic.

These children didn’t have wealth, or power, or any of those things we think will bring us happiness. But their eyes shone with this amazing joy, sparkling with some spirit I could never explain. I don’t know if they were really beautiful, but I thought they were. I was enchanted by their shining eyes, their constant smiles, their hospitality to strangers, their curiosity, all in a place that is far poorer than anywhere in this
United States of America.

Perhaps joy is unachievable. I don’t think it is. Maybe joy is just found in the simplest of things instead of the great complex endeavors of those out to conquer the world. I hve found more joy in a tiny town full of elderly people in a quiet setting than I have ever in the greatness and grandeur of all our cities combined. I have found more happiness in children living in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to play with save dead trees and long grass, than I have in all the hundreds of thousands of kids with TVs and video games. I have seen for myself, and gloried in the tiniest things, because, in the end, they are the most beautiful.

Nothing fills me with more peace and happiness than an early foggy morning, when the air is still cool and the dim outline of the sun is just beginning to show through. I have found more excitement in a small-town exhibition of fireworks on the Fourth than I have in years of watching the huge and fiery displays of Harrah’s casino. That’s because nothing, not even in the greatest grandeur, could compare to those quiet moments of a soul drinking deep of perfect harmony with a God that hides in those times. And, inevitably, that’s because it’s how we were created to be.

-Syshra

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 at 10:23 am and is filed under The Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.