What is your true happiness?
I think this is a question best answered after you try an exuberant amount of things, of people, of places explored. One cannot just wake at 20 and say, this is my true happiness. Maybe for that moment it is, maybe for a time that person is, but without living a long life one cannot really say what it is.
I thought I knew what my true happiness was so many times over. More times than not it was a woman, it was love given to someone else, it was the feeling of being wanted. I had felt so alone for so long, even when connected to someone, even in my height of being desired, I felt alone. Nothing I did ever changed that and in turn my happiness was never sustained.
Some people find that happiness in God and I am envious of the joy that beams from their souls. To feel that loved by something, to feel so secure in waking each day, more often than not, with an internal happiness beyond measure. I’ve visions of young love when I think of those that follow Christ, they have found the place or the thing that is their true happiness, they found belief.
But what of us that have not found that in God, where do we beam with happiness and peace and love and confidence. What is the thing, the place, the action, the existence that gives us such joy?
My friend is a devout Buddhist, and his smile beams across the universe and I’ve such pleasure in seeing it on his face. There is no doubt that he has found his happiness. He has been Buddhist for many years, but I’ve only known him for the past 5 or 8. I relish in the fact that his happiness is praying for others, how selfless and kind. To truly follow the way has a lot of praying and meditating involved in it, I should know, I was a devoted part-time Buddhist for a while.
I was told back then that you could see it in me, the glow of happiness. And I felt it, felt it like a wave love taking me in and not letting me go. I felt more loved by God and self than I ever had in my entire existence. Every day was that of sunshine and kind kisses from the world around me. I had no need for a woman or fancy clothes or an abundance of money, I had that internal happiness that everyone wants to know. Even though I strayed from being a part-time Buddhist a few years ago, I still hold the values and spiritual principals close to me, but the glow of it just isn’t there due to my lack of consistency in walking the path.
Easy solution though right, get back on the path, but it’s not that easy, I’ve too many outside influences holding me back. I do feel I am getting close to elevating all this that stifles me, and once that occurs I will be back on it. It is my true happiness, the selflessness, the unconditional love, the nonjudgement, I was so at peace back then. There was no ringing in my ears,no need for sleeping pills, no stress or fear, just the simplicity of the moment. I had never been so centered when practicing. I guess I did have what those folks that follow Christ have, a happiness within.
I haven’t really given it that much thought as of late, with the last few years being topsy-turvy and now moving into the place I bought and trying to keep up with all my painting jobs. My life has been face paced even though I move slower than I did when I was 30. I need more down time nowadays; more reboot to rebound and go back out into the world. I’ll be 50 in 2 months, never thought about turning 50, but always wondered how am I going to climb ladders and sling 5’s of paint at 65? Lord knows unless I’ve a big windfall of some sort I’ll be working till 70. I should defiantly eat more vegetables.
I started this thought after waking this morning in my van, feeling the hard yet comfortable memory foam bed beneath me. The lightness of the blankets, the perfect temperature in my tiny sanctuary, my tiny mobile home. I woke remembering how happy this makes me, how free I feel, how much my happiness is derived from waking in here. I laid there thinking about how I can sustain this life, then I started thinking of the coffee I make when in here, it has a different taste, a flavor of freedom.
I think I get caught up in the fantasy of living in here, the alure of instability and endless adventures. I see all the daily dealings slip away into the void of conventional living. I feel like pirate crisscrossing the seas and as friend David is presently doing on his little slice of heaven. I feel like Luis or Clark on an expedition to find new routes to new lands. I feel the presence of God so boldly when I am in my van, I feel so connected to the life around me, the life I have always desired to live. My soul screams aloud, “I could do this forever!!” But I tried it, and it didn’t work out that way (there’s actually a book about it if you’re interested ;). Yet still, this is my happiness, this combined with the part-time Buddhism – wow, talk about heaven sent.
But for a long-term lifestyle this is not feasible at this age. I am fortunate enough to have lived some of this in this lifetime. At some point childhood dreams need to be lived in short moments and a different way of life needs to be lead. If I make it to a retirement age, I would like to watch the grass grow and sun cast shadows from the porch of a tiny home in the mountains somewhere. Chopping wood, listening to birds sing their songs, the rustle of the trees as the wind passes through them, I can see that being my happiness.
I am filled with such a gratitude right now, to be sitting here, on my bed, in my van. No thoughts of money, or love, or health, or anything that can be turned into a plight, just me and all the memories of all the amazing times I’ve been able to experience. And this weekend is surely one of those most amazing times I’ve been given the opportunity to be a part of, my daughter is graduating college.
Just writing that I well up with tears, I am so proud of her I couldn’t even put into words if I tried. The obstacles she has surpassed, the fear and depression she had possessed, all of it struggled through to here, now, graduating UCLA’s English department with strait A’s. I would of never had the self-esteem to do any of this, I defiantly don’t possess the brains to even try it. But she is a shining a star amongst everything and everyone I know. And yes, it’s safe to say I am bias, as I should be.
I dreamt of this day so many many years ago, back when she was in grammar school I had visions of her graduating collage, wanting so much more for than I had for myself. My ex-wife the same, we both knew she was capable of this and so much more. The balance she had to create between school and missing home, work and a social life, I know how hard it was for her. It was like a dope fiend getting clean, you know you need to be clean to ultimately have a better life and the same with surviving college.
My daughter is a writer, like her dad, yet she is more talented than I’ll ever be. Being a writer is not an easy life lead, the amount of thought and feelings that pass through us and the need to live it all and keep record of it in a way that truly tells the story of how it feels, it’s a curse more so than gift, and any writer like she or I will tell you this. It’s like how we say those addicted to drugs and alcohol have the disease of the sensitive, so do writers. She is so sensitive, overly sensitive even and that is the beauty in her, the way she feels so much, so strongly, to the point of overwhelming elations and dire straits of sadness.
I still need to pinch myself at times to believe that I am awake, and this is real. Never would I have imagined that I would get to live this life with her. Never would I have imagined that after the divorce and all the radical times we endured as a broken family that I would still be here. I never wanted to leave, I put my life on hold till she graduated high school and ventured out into the world. I patiently stood still in the corner for many days and nights waiting to be let in, as I said, the divorce was intense. I want to say to my ex-wife, we did good and in thinking this a sadness washes over me to where I can’t hold back the tears and I wonder if I did good, if I did right, if I was enough. How selfish of me, it’s my lack of self-esteem and fear of not being enough that sends those thoughts through me. The fear that I could of been more, given more, but truth is I gave all I could and when that is achieved, it is enough – to think different would be me thinking I am not enough.
What is my true happiness, where does it come from, is it sustainable? My love for my daughter reaches far beyond any tangible thing that could ever make me happy, being her dad is my true happiness, and it is sustainable and never ending. These moments I get to experience disconnected from conventional living and being spiritually connected to the moment is my true happiness and that comes from within. My true happiness is when I am not thinking about myself, not wondering about the future, living in regret or fear or longing. My true happiness is now.
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