It has taken me a few days to write this meditation about happiness. I started on Monday night but then the following morning I learned that our cousins Roly and Tere had been in a horrible car accident and Tere had sustained life threatening injuries. It's hard to write about happiness when there is so much tribulation and sorrow around us. But I truly believe that even amidst the pain, God wants us to be happy and He wants us to find that place within us where true happiness resides. So I kept on writing only to lose what I had written because I forgot to save it. Finally, I finished it as I learned the happy news that Tere had been extubated and was breathing on her own. As you read this, please say a prayer for her total and complete healing.
This week I celebrated my 31st wedding anniversary. I remember my wedding day as if it was yesterday. I was 21 years old, full of hopes and dreams. I would be lying if I said that the last 31 years have been a piece of cake. There have been a lot of hills and valleys. But when we walked out of St. Dominic Catholic Church on June 29th, 1984, there was a third person that walked out with us. And He has been walking with us every step of this journey thus making it a lot easier.
As we were having our anniversary dinner, I asked my husband: "If you could change something from the past 31 years, what would it be?" "You," he answered. Of course, I set myself up for that one. But then he got serious and he told me: "I wouldn't change anything. What more can I ask out of life? After 31 years, I'm still in love with you, we have three good children that are doing well on their own, we are not millionaires but we are comfortable, I had my parents with me until I was 53... Life has been good to us. I am happy. I am content."
I think that is the key to happiness... To find that place in your life when you can look back and realize that life has been good, that you are content with the cards that life has dealt you. All of us are in the pursuit of happiness. If you who are reading this don't agree with me then I think that you jumped into the wrong boat. We are all meant to find happiness. God created us to be happy. He doesn't like it when we are suffering. When we are happy, He rejoices. The problem is that sometimes we are searching for happiness in all the wrong places.
We sometimes think that happiness comes from the things that we own. And we couldn't be more wrong. Acquiring things does not bring us happiness. We may think it does because of the jolt we may get when we buy a new car or a new dress or a new piece of jewelry. But this joy is only temporary. It doesn't last very long. Have you seen a child with a new toy? How long does the excitement last? When my kids were little I used to think that there should be a Blockbuster for toys. In addition to renting out videos they should also rent out toys. My kids would get bored from their toys so fast that I would put away toys they got for Christmas and space them out through the year. Unfortunately, many adults have not outgrown this childhood tendency. They spend their life acquiring things that are only going to bring a false sense of pleasure.
We also try to find happiness through experiences. We think that the more we do and the more we accomplish is what is going to make us happy. We keep bucket lists of things that we want to accomplish in our lifetime or of places that we want to visit. And even though going on vacation, traveling or accomplishing things written down on our bucket list may bring us joy, the truth is that the joy is only temporary. Once we return from vacation, all we have left are the memories and the pictures. And once we accomplish our goal, we need to concentrate on something new to find that sense of pleasure that we felt while we were trying to reach the goal. Sometimes we feel the happiest during the journey and once we reach the destination we realize that the happiness is gone. So we need to embark on a new journey because we are trying to find happiness outside when all along we are carrying it within.
Another way we try to find happiness is through the people around us, especially through our family and friends. Even though being with family is always a joyous occasion, it is not always peaceful. As my grandmother would say, "en la confianza esta el peligro" (in the trust there is danger). In a new relationship, there is always peace and happiness at the beginning. Eventually, as the two persons get to know each other better, they will inevitably have a disagreement which will lead to a discussion which will lead to a fight. I am certainly not happy when I'm upset at someone. And many times we carry grudges that could last a lifetime, thus making our journey very heavy and causing a dent in finding true happiness. We cannot make others responsible for our happiness because if we do we are just going to be miserable.
When my mother-in-law passed away just two months after my father-in-law, my husband told me: "I feel as if I have been left with a huge hole in my heart." I mentioned this to Father Willie and he told me that the hole could only be filled with God. And I truly believe this. We all have a hole within our hearts that we try to fill with possessions, experiences or people, but this hole can only be filled with God. It is in Him where true happiness resides and until we realize this, we are going to continue searching for happiness in all the wrong places.
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