Eric Knickerbocker
July 09, 2001
Happiness. Something we all are in search of. And where might its evasive presence be found? What makes me think I should have any insight into the matter? All I can do is echo the words of those who have gone on before me. And yet truth never really changes, never really rearranges, even though it seems to slip from our grasp so quickly. We all need a gentle reminder from time to time.
Stop and think for a moment of the times you are most happy. What do they have in common? I have found happiness comes from helping others, unhappiness from focusing too much and too long on myself. I am always happiest when I can forget myself altogether. Such a troublesome person I am to me . . . Imagine being strapped with a mind that analyzed every last little flaw and detail of your being and gave you no mercy day or night, consistently reminding you how illogical and imperfect you really are. (And don’t tell me, I already know. You too come equipped with such a mind, don’t you?)
Yes, I have also found happiness comes from accepting one’s own lot and position in life—when one’s eyes stray to what one has not got, or what one isn’t, one soon becomes unhappy. I would be fine, I think, if it weren’t for a certain delicate, human creature that I don’t have . . . That is the one thing I lack I most often wish I didn’t, and suffer unhappiness because of it—because I am back to wanting what I don’t have rather than accepting and being happy with what I do.
What is that expression again? The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence? The funny thing is that when you do get to the other side of the fence, you realize a little too late the awful truth: Dummy, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence! What an irony! Been there, done that, watched it all slip through my fingers, just like the tears that slipped down my cheeks, felt the hole it tore in my heart as what once was one was rendered in twain, ne’er to meet again. What do the Scriptures say again? What God has joined together, let no man part?
Aye, yes. I learned the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, and as I say in my autobiography “The strange thing about life is that it has a funny way of teaching you the truth—one way or the other.” Life is largely a matter of perspective. Perhaps it would be wise to remember that you are on the other side of the fence, right now. Perhaps you should take a moment to soak in the greenness found there already. All is not lost.
You could say my life lacks any real plan, but it doesn’t lack purpose. I create purpose, I suppose you could say. I find what I like to do, and try to do it well. No, I think that purpose is found in being, which is a moment to moment thing. Remember what I said about happiness not being found in what you aren’t or what you don’t have? The future is something you don’t have yet. All you really have is the here and now. You don’t even have the past anymore. All you have are memories, shadows of what once was.
Those who can learn to live in and enjoy the here and now are always the happiest people. Those who can live in and enjoy the here and now are fulfilled people, people with purpose. Those who obsess with any time other than the here and now are people who are not truly happy. Just like people who want what they don’t have—like me wanting a wife to call my own, thinking she will make me happy, that I couldn’t want for anything else—or the people who wish they were something they are not—these are not happy people. These are not fulfilled people. And even if these people do have purpose, they don’t feel like they do.
I have heard many men and women complain because they don’t have a relationship with that certain special man or woman of their dreams—or complain that they do!—and blame all their problems and woes on relationships and the opposite sex in general (or one particular member of the opposite sex), but that isn’t really true. Their unhappiness comes from wanting what they don’t have, rather than finding happiness in what they do have.
This is hardly a new philosophy. The sages throughout the ages have been declaring this truth in one form or another for as long as man has had breath. Aye, but we all need a gentle reminder once in a while, do we not, my friend? Life is all a matter of perspective. Perhaps you need to adjust yours?
“Then I realized that it is good and proper for a man to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in his toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given him—for this is his lot. Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work—this is a gift of God. He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart” (Ecclesiastes 5:18–19).
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