. . . “Then you have before you the
form of false happiness, and its causes; now turn your attention in the
opposite direction, and you will quickly see the true happiness which I have promised
to show you.”
“But surely this is clear even to the
blindest, and you showed it before when you were trying to make clear the
causes of false happiness. For if I mistake not, true and perfect happiness is
that which makes a man truly satisfied, powerful, venerated, renowned, and
happy. And, for I would have you see that I have looked deeply into the matter,
I realize without doubt that that which can truly yield any one of these, since
they are all one, is perfect happiness.”
“Ah! My son,” said she, “I do see that
you are blessed in this opinion, but I would have you add one thing.”
“What is that?” I asked.
“Do you think that there is anything
among mortals, and in our perishable lives, which could yield such a state?”
“I do not think that there is, and I
think that you have shown this beyond the need of further proof.”
“These then seem to yield to mortals
certain appearances of the true good, or some such imperfections; but they cannot
give true and perfect good.”
“No.”
“Since, then, you have seen what is
true happiness, and what are the false imitations thereof, it now remains that
you should learn from where this true happiness may be sought.”
“For that,” said I, “I have been
impatiently waiting.”
“But Divine help must be sought in
small things as well as great, as my pupil Plato says in his Timaeus; so what,
think you, must we do to deserve to find the place of that highest good?”
“Call,” I said, “upon the Father of
all, for if we do not do so, no undertaking would be rightly or duly begun.”
“You are right,” said she; and thus she
cried aloud: . . .
—from
Book 3, Prose 9
Being
happy would mean that I have everything that I want, that I will desire nothing
above and beyond what is already mine, and that I can rest assured that what I
require is mine with certainty, that no one has the power to take it away from
me.
Now this
may seem like quite a tall order, and many people will tell me that it is
impossible to find such a state of life. Yet it only seems impossible because
of the things we think we need, and because we pursue all of the wrong ends.
Lady Philosophy has already explained this. If I run after what is incomplete,
I will fail. If I want what is beyond my power to possess, I will fail.
What is
most disturbing is when folks admit that we are made to be happy, but then turn
around and say that happiness can never really be found. So why do I live? Is
it, perhaps, only for someone else’s gratification, which is itself yet another
form of failed contentment, and does it all spiral into a never-ending cycle of
mutual disappointment?
Do not
give happiness many names, but give it one, because only what is one will it be
complete. There may be many aspects, but there is only one source. Do not make
happiness dependent upon what may happen, but upon what you can make happen. It
is up to you how you will live, not up to others. Do not look for the broken
parts, but look for the perfect whole. Never settle for what is second to the
best.
“You
cannot have the best. Be satisfied with whatever you get,” they may tell us.
Don’t believe it. You can have the best, not in wealth, or power, or honor, but
in your own character. Some people just want you to work for them, when you
should really just be working for yourself.
But what
could I possibly call my own, even as all the things I crave after are hardly
my own? I can easily lose my job, or my reputation, or everything I consider my
property.
I once
listened to a Texas sheriff, annoyed that I could not immediately find my proof
of car insurance in my glovebox, tell me that he could get me “raped in jail”
if I didn’t hurry up.
He was
quite right, of course. If he said that I had been drinking, or fighting, or
mouthing off to him, he could have done precisely that. And there would have
been nothing I could do to stop him.
So how
can there be happiness with all of that? Rather easily. Don’t focus on all of
that.
Nothing,
absolutely nothing, that I see around me can fulfill that most urgent need. All
of those things may be a part of the whole, but they are not the whole. What is
the whole?
Plato
had it right, as all humble men of wisdom have it right. If you want what is the
biggest, the best, and the most perfect, raise you eyes, your thoughts and
intentions to what is the biggest, the best, and the most perfect.
An angry
Texas sheriff can’t be trusted; God can be trusted.
Written in 9/2015
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