Here it is, re-posted:
5/16/2009
The Best Meal
I don’t have a lot of money. I barely am able to pay my bills. My apartment, whose anti-luxury I can barely afford, looks like a dungeon of doom. I still owe my university some money. I still owe my bank some money. My body aches. My brain is tired.
My career is getting started but is not quite what I want just yet. My ambitions are high and will only get higher as I achieve them. My mind dreams forever…too much for anyone to ever gain any type of contentment.
But somehow…today…happiness has never seemed so clear to me like it has just now.
After a week of intense training and bodily torture I stumble into a Chipotle after a nice long hot shower. My body is cooled, clean, and fresh. Before I eat my one of must be hundreds of burrito bowls filled with all the ingredients to my liking I remember two things:
First, The homeless guy I passed on the walk from my car to the door of the restaurant.
And second, a picture that my dad put on our wall as I was growing up of a man with his hands folded praying as a piece of bread lay in front of him.
It was then, all the sudden, an overwhelming sense of thankfulness nearly paralyzed me.
I wanted to cry.
I must admit that I have felt these sensations before but now I am determined to remember them by writing. Maybe this time I can look back and remember all the emotions I felt.
Being a second generation child who knows only comfort provided by hard-working parents I never knew how profound my dad’s favorite painting could be. Yes, on the surface it was about a man being thankful for his supper. Who the man is or what the man does is completely beyond me. But for my dad, it was a man thanking his God for his life. His life…his life. What is in front of him guarantees not the future, or prosperity, or success…it only reminds him of living and being in a true sense of thanksgiving off just a loaf of bread…but that is more than enough to be inspired by. He may be rich, he may be poor, he may be happy, he may be sad…there’s just no way of telling. But the idea that anyone can be thankful and humble for just a piece of bread is what makes it so beautiful. It means a lot to my dad considering the hardships of immigration, language barriers, economic instabilities, fear, and anxiety.
The homeless guy who no matter how bad of a day I (a “suffering” human being ) have would love to spend time in my shoes.
So before I ate, I prayed. I had to…the humility at the time was over bearing.
I’m not sure to what or whom I prayed but I prayed. Not out of service or ritual but out of the pure gravity of my emotions. With every exhale of my breath my eyes watered. I closed my eyes and said,
“Thank you for this food. Thank you for my life. Thank you for letting me pursue what I truly love. Thank you for everything”.
Maybe it was the fact that I was just so truly exhausted. That nourishing my body was so important at that point and the fact that I could do so at will is what made me so thankful.
And then I began to ponder. What is making me so happy right now? Despite everything in my life that no one would be willing to take on aside from their own hardship. Why do I feel this happiness? At least for now…why am I this happy. Why couldn’t my happiness wait for after I win a job in a symphony orchestra? Or after I make the Olympics? Or after an NFL team decides to sign me to a contract? Or after my brother sheds off his mental illnesses? Or after my family is able to not worry about being poor? Or after I get a car that doesn’t rattle in the back for whatever reason (damn)?
Then it came to me. Thoughts that we’ve (you and I) had all the time. Thoughts we never seem to put together. Thoughts we never quite commit to. Well, here’s my shot.
Happiness is impossible to attain.
Maybe in the future I can make enough money to provide for myself and for everyone that I love (a deed above everything else that I’ve always aspired to do…something I thought would make me happy).
But even that won’t make me happy.
Once I achieve that, my thoughts will be “well, there’s more to do”. It’s human nature. Its what helps us better ourselves. Its how we advance, its how we survive, it’s how we work. When Mahler wrote his second symphony saying that “ I have put all of myself into this work” do you think that it was the truth? Why did 8 ½ more symphonies poor out of his creative life? There is always something more. There is never a moment of complete arrival. This is why artists never stop their craft, why musicians play and learn constantly, why philosophers never seem to come to their absolute decision, why scientists only know a chip of reality, why we will never live a day when we can’t learn.
This is why humans cannot “attain” happiness.
Happiness is a state of mind. Though we may attain objectives, the only role of our successes is to feed into what we hope will contribute to our state of mind. That is why we cannot depend on our success to give us happiness. Happiness is a much more personal, introverted affair. Happiness is universal and can reach anyone no matter their circumstance. A poor mother who sees their child walk for the first time will be just as happy as a rich mother with her child. Thankfulness lately has helped me attain happiness these last few moments. I feel that it can stick.
Thankful for what? I’m thankful for many things just as much as anyone else can be. Even a wheel chair -bound person can be thankful for so much. I can bet that many handicapped people are thankful for so much more and have a greater grasp of happiness than people who march up and down schools, buildings, and streets who claim to be in the pursuit of something that they are ironically ignoring…happiness.
Why are such high-end jobs leading to stress and amazing amounts of suicide. I would say that the leading cause of that (aside from high-stress occupational demands) is that people forget that the sun comes out, people are alive, and that beauty is there for us every day…not something we have to struggle to see.
Whether you are a spiritual person or not, it really doesn’t matter. I really do hope that every once in a while, no matter what is happening in your life…no matter what…., that you can take a few moments and just meditate on how beautiful it all really is. All of it. Our country is always in war, our economy sucks, relationships are hard, your family may not be what it should be, your school work is giving you hell, no matter how hard you work at something progress seems to escape you…whatever else you can think of. Happiness is dependent on none of those. Not even those you love.
But where are you now? What has gotten you there? Who have you met that has been a special blessing to you? How easy is it for you to pursue your passions? What makes you happy? Can anyone take that from you?
You’re alive. The day is yours.
The fact that I have this happiness today (and hopefully forever) stems from the fact that nothing or no one can ever make me or you happy. Our happiness as related to objects or people occurs when we truly make a personal decision that the two are related. It is up to us to be happy and not what we achieve or who we meet. The role of objects and people are important but their impact to happiness is far less than your own genuine perception.
For instance, this beer that I am drinking. The fact that I am drinking this beer now makes me happy. Beer does not make me happy. I can do without beer. (and we should be able to do without anything or anyone) Having worked really hard this week, it feels nice to drink a beer on occasion. Now if I were to equate beer with happiness, I would be binge drinking every night…but what happiness is there to that…there is only alcoholism.
Jim Markey of the New York Philharmonic so beautifully stated that , “when you place all of the value of your existence in getting a job (success, or someone, or something) then you will be consumed by failure“. There are people who work hard to get on top. But when they get to the top…what’s next…why am I wanting more when I thought this would make me ultimately happy? Others will work harder than ever because of a gift that they are thankful for. When they get to the top, well, they don’t care…they pursue at the same rate because what they are doing makes them happy.
Nothing can give us happiness. Or no one. What do I mean when I say no one can make you happy? The idea of “having” someone will not lead to happiness. The need to have someone or the dependency. Never should our happiness be dependent. How people make us happy is when we come to love who they are and how what they are aligns with what makes us happy. Again, someone else cannot literally give us happiness. It depends on whether that friend, wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, partner, …etc provides us with much more than just possession. Simple concept, bad rambling of an explanation.
Where there is status, achievement, or possession there will always be the need for more. Neither of the three are bad but happiness does not result from them…it results from us. Lets be thankful…everyone can do it. Let’s pursue, lets work hard, lets have an undying passion for what we hope to achieve…but let’s be thankful!
