We are all seeking this enchanted world, but most of us in the same way that the little boy in the story sought it. A poor little boy, so runs this old story, once lived in a little weather-worn cottage on the top of a hill. He was a dreamy boy and every evening at sunset he would sit on the doorstep looking down toward the valley, fascinated by a beautiful house with wonderful golden windows shining a long way off at the far end of the valley. He was greatly dissatisfied with the poverty of his surroundings, and the sight of the house in the valley, where he had never been, made him very unhappy. “Ah,” he would sigh, “what a poor miserable home my hut is! If I could only live in that beautiful house with the golden windows how happy I should be!” One evening when the golden windows, more wonderful than ever, seemed beckoning him to come, the boy made up his mind he would go and visit the house beautiful. So, early next morning he started out. The road was dusty and the sun was hot, but the little traveler trudged on and on. At length, toward sundown he found himself at the far side of the valley. But what had become of the beautiful house he had seen from his hill-top? What he stood looking at was only an old tumble-down barn. And the wonderful windows? Alas, they were not gold at all, but just ordinary glass, and dirty and broken, too. Tired and thirsty, the little boy flung himself on the ground with his back to the deserted barn, and sobbed bitterly. Then, slowly raising his head and looking up across the valley, through blinding tears, he saw a shining blur, — his own little cottage on the hill-top! And lo, its windows, in the light of the setting sun, were a sheet of blazing gold! How like this little boy we grown-ups are! It is always the house in the distance that beckons. The beauty and glory of life, to our discontented, longing eyes, are always afar off in some other place and time, somewhere else than just where we are and in what we are doing. Some day we hope to enter the house beautiful, but not today. We expect that in the future, through some magic or other, through money or what money can purchase, we are going to find happiness. But no human being has ever grasped the beautiful mirage which beckons him in the distance. Most of the people I know impress me as being greatly disappointed with what life has given them. They have not found any such future as they anticipated. When they reached those years which youth had pictured so free from care and anxiety, so satisfying to their aspirations, they found existence very ordinary, very tame, very commonplace, and far from happy. The mirage which from a distance appeared so beautiful had receded when they reached the spot from which it had beckoned, and it was still beckoning from an ever receding beyond. The chief cause of our discontent and unhappiness is that hardly anyone is satisfied with what he has. The little simple things don’t count for anything with us. We are always looking for some big thing to make us happy,—a fortune, some grand opportunity, and some indefinite happiness which we are at a loss to describe. And we seem to think that whatever this thing is that is going to make us really happy is always somewhere in the shadowy future. “It is the tormented spirit of man that always strives to bend the universe to his desires,” says Dr. Frank Crane. “Hence most souls do not fit. They are at everlasting war with fate. They do not understand how to be happy with what is, because they are always straining for what is not.” Some people don’t even know what they are straining for. How many of the discontented people you have ever met could give you any intelligent idea of the cause of their unhappiness? They know they are discontented, unhappy; many of them chase the world over, trying to discover something which is not discoverable, which is only a by-product of a worthy deed; and this by-product cannot be obtained until the deed is performed. We push and elbow our way through life and frantically struggle to get hold of things which we believe will make us happy,—and behold, the moment we grasp them, the charm, with which our imagination had invested them, vanishes! The thing we had set our heart on and which we got into our possession yesterday is not the same thing today. It does not begin to give the pleasure which it promised, and we are no nearer satisfaction than before. But our attention is quickly attracted to something else, which we feel sure will compensate for our disappointment, and we grasp at it only to repeat the same experience—disappointment, disillusion. It does not fill the void in our hearts. There is ever an unsatisfied longing which we spend our lives trying to fill. No matter what we may obtain in the way of material things, while we may get a certain sort of pleasure and comfort from them, they do not satisfy the inward soul hunger. They are like the different things which we take on a hot day, instead of pure cold water, to quench our thirst. We think if we could only get some soda-water, some ice cream, iced tea or coffee it would satisfy our longing, but it does not. Nothing but pure cold water will give the satisfaction we crave. All substitutes for this simplest and most plentiful of all beverages lack something. They leave us unsatisfied, with a longing for the genuine article. Happiness is like water. There is no substitute that will take its place. One of the strangest things in life is the false ideas everywhere prevalent regarding the nature of happiness. The general belief seems to be that it is founded on things that can be bought with money. The more money the more things, and the more things the more enjoyment, the greater the degree of happiness. But money has never yet been known to buy happiness. No one has ever yet found happiness by chasing it over the earth. It is not in our food, it is not in our drink, it is not in our clothes or material possessions; it is not in excitement or a constant round of pleasure. Happiness is born of right living. It is the child of right thinking, and right acting, of helpful service. A selfish life never knows real happiness. Greed and envy never touch it. Phillip Brooks
Posted on: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 19:28:32 +0000
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