This I Believe
I believe that happiness is internal. Many people say “Once I get a larger salary” or “Once the summer comes” or even “Once the waiter brings me my meal, that’s when I’ll be in high spirits ” These things may be pleasant, but the prime cause of happiness is something else entirely. I’ll enlighten you with an experience I had a year ago.
It was a cold Sunday afternoon in dead December. I gave it that name the year before because it was the month where all plant life has deceased and the suicide rate is at an all time high; hence the title dead December. It was 28 degrees that day and I was sitting in my warm, comfortable car listening to my warm, comfortable music. I felt good that I was sheltered from Mother Nature’s cold wind. I stopped at a red light and glanced out my window to see three cold young children. It looked like they were brothers because one was around 15 the others around 11 and 8 years old. They were walking down the side of the street with not nearly enough clothing to keep them warm and the eight year old the only one wearing shoes.
My initial instinct was to feel bad for them like any person would. I thought to myself “who knows what these kids have been through? Who knows what their life is like?” I felt a substantial gap between the world I live in and the world they live in. “The other side of the tracks” as they call it. At the height of my pity, I took a look at the kids and realize they were laughing. They had the smile of a groom on his wedding day, the energy of a racehorse and the pride of a lion. At first this confused me and for a brief moment, I envied them. This is when I realized something that I still think about today.
These children do not have much. They not certainly don’t have the coolest toys or the best clothes. Their parents never got that raise and the waiter never brought them that exciting main dish. Many people would expect these kids to be torn apart, including myself at the time. But what this shows is that happiness isn’t tangible. It’s not something you can point at. Happiness is the spirit that’s inside of you. This I believe.
It was a cold Sunday afternoon in dead December. I gave it that name the year before because it was the month where all plant life has deceased and the suicide rate is at an all time high; hence the title dead December. It was 28 degrees that day and I was sitting in my warm, comfortable car listening to my warm, comfortable music. I felt good that I was sheltered from Mother Nature’s cold wind. I stopped at a red light and glanced out my window to see three cold young children. It looked like they were brothers because one was around 15 the others around 11 and 8 years old. They were walking down the side of the street with not nearly enough clothing to keep them warm and the eight year old the only one wearing shoes.
My initial instinct was to feel bad for them like any person would. I thought to myself “who knows what these kids have been through? Who knows what their life is like?” I felt a substantial gap between the world I live in and the world they live in. “The other side of the tracks” as they call it. At the height of my pity, I took a look at the kids and realize they were laughing. They had the smile of a groom on his wedding day, the energy of a racehorse and the pride of a lion. At first this confused me and for a brief moment, I envied them. This is when I realized something that I still think about today.
These children do not have much. They not certainly don’t have the coolest toys or the best clothes. Their parents never got that raise and the waiter never brought them that exciting main dish. Many people would expect these kids to be torn apart, including myself at the time. But what this shows is that happiness isn’t tangible. It’s not something you can point at. Happiness is the spirit that’s inside of you. This I believe.