Happiness is Elusive

This is part of an essay I wrote recently.

Happiness is just a feeling—get high, get happy. I’ll feel happy if I sleep with him. If more people liked me, if I had more stuff, if I partied every night, I would feel happy. Happy. Happy. Happy. What an endlessly monotonous process, the pursuit of happiness. In his poem “Endymion,” John Keats asks the question, “wherein lies happiness” (ll.24.777). How does one locate it? Some live their entire lives centered on finding someone or something that makes them happy in an empty world filled with empty activities. Aristotle writes in book one of his Nichomachean Ethics: “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” The world defines happiness as a feeling, a passing emotion that comes and goes like sunshine on a cloudy day. But true happiness, contentment, the fulfillment of the human heart, is so much more than a feeling, and it has to come from somewhere else, something whole and lasting, something otherworldly. To find that elusive contentment, one must abandon the pursuit of the shallow.

Without pursuing the permanent God, the permanent longing of the human heart can never be adequately filled. Qoheleth, the writer of Ecclesiastes, realized that God has “set eternity in the heart of man” (Ecc. 3:11, NIV). He tried everything under the sun yet finally turned to the eternal God for solace. Because humans have that longing for eternality imprinted on their hearts, fulfillment of those longings can only come from an eternal source. This world is full of futile pursuits that lead nowhere but to more futility. Humanity can only solve meaninglessness through the joy and contentment found in the everlasting God.

To find contentment, one must pursue God, the only real satisfaction. Happiness is a fickle lover, but the inner peace that comes from knowing God lasts as long as he does. People always try to find happiness in the wrong sectors of life. Looking deeper means looking for the one who fulfills every longing, because he is completely whole. Pursuing wealth, sex, or alcohol backfired a long time ago—they don’t fulfill the human heart’s deepest longings for contentment. Other people will come and go; material possessions will come and go; youth and beauty will come and go. When people stop chasing the feeling of happiness and begin to seek the satisfaction of the eternal, they truly will find abundant life. As fleeting happiness shows its face, true contentment lies along the path to that God who longs to give complete joy.

 

[photo credit: Ryan McGinty]

"The activity of happiness must occupy an entire lifetime; for one swallow does not a summer make."

Aristotle

Life is to be lived

look for me just behind that bend, that's where i'll be, behind all the memories of yesterday
it doesn't appear to be fading that fog that's inside of me
if you turn on your brights in fog you get blinded.
so how do i see my way out of this mess? (can you help me?)
i'm wiping my eyes but windshield wipers don't usually come with the package deal

forget love i'd rather fall in chocolate. hidden significance apparently.
obviouslyy.
but why won't anyone show me?

Find out who you are and then they'll find you, unless you die first.
ha.. ha.. ha. morbid jokes don't mean much until you're dead and then you realize how dead you really are
if he's dead then we're all dead
but that tomb is empty and i looked inside
he lives so show me, how it is, how it is to love and live

don't regret it just love it
live it well live it long live it good
but don't forget to love it

"no love is true save that which loves forever."
~Aristotle, Rhetoric

[photo credit: Ben Heine]

Love... is a thing with feathers, that perches in the soul

"It is pleasant to be loved, for this too makes a man see himself as the possessor of goodness, a thing that every being that has a feeling for it desires to possess: to be loved means to be valued for one's own personal qualities."

Aristotle, Rhetoric

"Keep a guard over your eyes and ears as the inlets of your heart, and over your lips as the outlet, lest they betray you in a moment of unwariness. Receive, coldly and dispassionately, every attention, till you have ascertained and duly considered the worth of the aspirant; and let your affections be consequent upon approbation alone. First study; then approve; then love. Let your eyes be blind to all external attractions, your ears deaf to all the fascinations of flattery and light discourse. --These are nothing-- and worse than nothing -- snares and wiles of the tempter, to lure the thoughtless to their own destruction. Principle is the first thing, after all; and next to that, good sense, respectability, and moderate wealth. If you should marry the most agreeable man in the world, you little know the misery that would overwhelm you, if, after all, you little know the misery that would overwhelm you, if, after all, you should find him to be a worthless reprobate, or even an impracticable fool."

Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

"Indeed, it is always the first sign of love, that besides enjoying some one's presence, we remember him when he is gone, and feel pain as well as pleasure, because he is there no longer."

Aristotle, Rhetoric

(Who knew Aristotle had such good things to say?)

Yes, yours, my love, is the right human face,
I in my mind had waited for this long,
Seeing the false and searching for the true,
Then found you as a traveller finds a place
Of welcome suddenly amid the wrong
Valleys and rocks and twisting roads. But you,
What shall I call you? A fountain in a waste,
A well of water in a country dry,
Or anything that’s honest and good, an eye
That makes the whole world bright. Your open heart,
Simple with giving, gives the primal deed,
The first good world, the blossom, the blowing seed,
The hearth, the steadfast land, the wandering sea.
Not beautiful or rare in every part.
But like yourself, as they were meant to be.

Edwin Muir, "The Confirmation"


'Survive Love"

 by myself

hey love, welcome back, i missed you.
hey love, you don't need to stay that's really okay.
(but yes you're reading me correctly love, i already made dinner)
hey love, you think i'll end up all right?
look i found the dawn! over in the west...or does it rise in the east? i can never remember.
but he's here.
welcome back dawn, welcome back fireflies, welcome back agony.
sparklers sunshine dresses heart you fluff and nonsense go away.
it's fabulous in the springtime, isn't it my dear? 
find you find me find everything we're looking for but it's not true
oh you hush devil on my shoulder.
i choose to welcome it no matter which way it goes
welcome back my love

[Photo credit to Robert Norbury]

Life keeps changing

"And life: since even if no other good were the result of life, it is desirable in itself."

Aristotle, Rhetoric

Life is beautiful. There's just something about it! I'm alive, and I'm glad of it! You only get this one chance at living, and soon it will be gone.  Soon I'll be leaving for college just like my sister. Soon I'll be buying my first house. Soon I'll be in a rocking chair holding my first grandchild. (Well, maybe not that soon.) But life keeps coming at you. I'm going to miss her so much, but LIFE is here. It keeps knocking on the door, letting you know that things are changing. Goodbye, everything I was used to. One of my good friends gave me some wisdom once. Old friends are going, but you will have new friends, and you don't have to lose the old friends. It will be different -- but sometimes different is even better than before. It doesn't have to be miserable :) Change isn't always bad. (But when everything is changing for the worse, remember the one who never changes. The one whose love is unchanging, unfailing, unrelenting. That one who keeps pursuing and never will stop.)


I once heard the prayer "Lord, thank you for waking me up this morning." You know, we don't deserve this kind of treatment. When did I ever deserve another minute of this life? I really appreciate being here this morning, God. He chose to wake me up this morning, and I will use that gift with everything else he's given me.

Because life is hard, but it's worth it.

John Mayer - Heart of Life [i know that the heart of life is good]


(photo by Giselle Morgan)

What for?

"The awful question: What for? which had shattered all his intellectual edifices in the past, no longer existed for him. To that question: What for? a simple answer was now always ready in his soul: Because there is a God, that God without whose will not one hair of a man's head falls."

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Yeah, we've all thought it. probably more than once. WHAT FOR? Why am I even alive? what's the point? do I matter at all? and more than once, you've probably come to the conclusion... pointless. pointless. like the constant barrage of rain on a rooftop. it's pointless.

Qoheleth, the writer of Ecclesiastes, agrees: “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” (Ecc. 1:2) See? There's just pointlessness. Day after day, it's all the same. We go on, going on, living this painful life. I see people every day, living this pointless life, pointlessly. They don't know why they live so they just do anything to try to get some sort of meaning. If this is all there is, I'd better live it up while I can...right? 


One of the main characters in War and Peace, Pierre, has the world: A beautiful and glamorous wife, so much money he can't spend it fast enough, and the ability to do whatever he wants. So he does do whatever he wants, and every day is tormented by "Why am I living?" because it didn't fulfill. Only at the end of the book, when his life has been stripped of everything and he lives as an army prisoner, does he find what he's looking for. In that simplicity, suffering exists, yet God exists as well -- and God is bigger. Because there is certainty in who God has revealed himself to be, we can have purpose, even if we don't know what's going to happen in this life.

"Two things I know: that he is good, and he is strong."
~(Author unknown)

thankfulness. it's hard.

my self control goes tttbhhhhh (i.e. down the tubes) when humidity rises. it probably translates into some kind of graph but i'm not smart enough to figure it out. and i think all my brains have been cooked out. i wonder what's up there in my head right now? probably a little pancake. made of my brain. good bye brain.

it's hard when you know that complaining definitely isn't the right thing to do but all you want to do is complain... such a predicament. i wonder if it counts as complaining if it's all inside your head?

but as i pondered this with what little amount of brains i had left, i think that it just has to be an attitude shift...focus on what's good. i have a job! i get paid money! i wanted summer the whole winter! thank you for my life!

yeah way easier said than done.

but i guess it has to be done.

thankfulness. it's hard. especially when it's 100 degrees.

Photo credit: Kylie Lanae

that rocky place

it's not to say that i know everything, but then again...i know everything. 
(not really.)
but, i do know some things, i think. not that many, but some.. enough to get by. 

my friend told me about this european style of poetry where you just write down your thoughts, sort of  like a stream of consciousness (think James Joyce' Ulysses), except this is in poetry form. i think it's cool! it's like.. your brain, randomly vomiting out thoughts, in blank verse. that's definitely cool and rather weird, though hard for somebody else to read because it's not their brain... ANdd, i was also reading some e.e.cummings recently, which also inspired me. here is my Stream of consciousness/blank verse/euro poetry about... dum da dum...

Rocks!

rocks are like hearts.
whenever you break one, pieces go everywhere
skadooosh and then there's just a giant mess to clean up.
i think that we all should turn our hearts to fluffy pillows;
we'd never break them.
but then again what's life without a little pain?
you hurt me i hurt you we're an unhappy family...
take it back to the days when i was still your number one baby it can be done! [sorry getting all jay sean on you there]
but no i forgot already! my heart was busted and you can't have it back.
not even one shard of it, no, i took them all back and i kept them in a jar like fireflies
now i watch that jar at night and wish the pieces could glow
but they just don't.

rocks don't glow.
how thick can you get?

                                                 photo credit: james jordan

Is it time?

Shifting grass,
Fleeting winds,
Elusive mirage.
So goes time;
Stop! Look! wait...
it's gone away.


Time leaves us breathless, eventually, literally. Why don't I remember that each day, as I waste it and use it and spend it? good bye to the time i will never get back... hello to the time in my future which is not for certain... you look long in coming, but you come all the same, and it's never as long as i thought it would be. and then, you're gone away. I fade each day fade to where i knew i would be fading. we call it death but it's just the passing of time. don't worry, just wisely. use it wisely. count the minutes for you know it will all be gone by the time you remember to look back. 


Ecclesiastes 12:1-7
"Remember your Creator
   in the days of your youth,
before the days of trouble come
   and the years approach when you will say,
   “I find no pleasure in them”—
² before the sun and the light
   and the moon and the stars grow dark,
   and the clouds return after the rain;
³ when the keepers of the house tremble,
   and the strong men stoop,
when the grinders cease because they are few,
   and those looking through the windows grow dim;
⁴ when the doors to the street are closed
   and the sound of grinding fades;
when people rise up at the sound of birds,
   but all their songs grow faint;
⁵ when people are afraid of heights
   and of dangers in the streets;
when the almond tree blossoms
   and the grasshopper drags itself along
   and desire no longer is stirred.
Then people go to their eternal home
   and mourners go about the streets.
 ⁶ Remember him—before the silver cord is severed,
   and the golden bowl is broken;
before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
   and the wheel broken at the well,
⁷ and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
   and the spirit returns to God who gave it."

Perspective is a lovely hand to hold

Perspective...it's not always what you want to hear. This blog is dedicated to saying those words, because I need to hear them, because you need to hear them, because the world needs to hear them. 

Something I've thought about a whole lot is "what does it take to have a meaningful life?" Where do I find purpose? It's not in school and it's not in my friends and it's not in partying, because all of those things never can satisfy.... so where do I go to find this purpose?? What's the meaning of life? is it really 42?!

I've had it good in my life. I know that. I've never had to pay my own doctor's bill because my parents couldn't, had to steal to eat, had to whatever. I don't have it perfect though, and I find a lot to complain about.
Sure, you've got it bad, I'll agree. Maybe you've got it really bad, and I'm sorry for that. But the reality is, there are people in this world who've got it worse -- a LOT worse. People whose parents died of AIDS, left alone at age seven. People who are trapped in the human trafficking system, viciously abused with no apparent way out. People who are in real slavery, slavery of endless nothingness. People whose families were killed in the tsunami, the earthquake, the tornado.

So let me ask you: why are you focusing on YOU?

Complaining about your job, your stupid brother, you can't get an iPad? That's about you. Focusing on who's friends with you and who couldn't care less? That's about you. I think we forget that it's not about us. It's about Jesus and the purpose he can give us, what he's given us on this earth, and what he wants us to be. To whom much is given, much is required. Most people in America have been given much. If you have a job, you've been given much. If you have food to eat every day, you've been given much. If you woke up this morning, you've been given much. We have been given so much :) What will be required?

Something is out there, and it's something big; something that I want to be part of.

[photo by Caroline Kennedy Photography]