“It was impossible to stay indoors. My room seemed too small to contain my happiness. I need the whole of nature to unbosom myself.”-An excerpt from ‘Camille’ by Alexandre Dumas.
We all seem to be in a mad rush today. I watch the cars and trucks flying by me on my way in to do this radio show every night. I always wonder where they’re going and why they seem in such a hurry to get there. I’m content to take my sweet time-unless I’m late for work, and then I’m right up there with them…
We spend our lives trying to fulfill our dreams, and when we finally get there we may be disappointed, that what we had in mind is not what it eventually turned out to be. I’m always reminded of that writing called “The Station” by Robert J. Hasting.
“Tucked away in our subconscious minds is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long, long trip that almost spans the continent. We’re travelling by passenger trains, and out the windows we drink in the passing scene of cars on the nearby highways, of children waving at a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn and wheat, of flat-lands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hillsides, of city skylines and village halls, of biting winter and blazing summer and cavorting spring and docile fall. But uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day at a certain hour we will pull into the station. There will be bands playing and flags waving. And once we get there so many wonderful dreams will come true. So many wishes will be fulfilled and so many pieces of our lives will be neatly fitted together like a completed jigsaw puzzle. How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes for loitering…waiting, waiting, waiting for the station. However, sooner or later we must realize there is no one station, no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip. The station is only a dream. It constantly outdistances us, ‘When we reach the station, that will be it!’ We cry. Translated it means, ‘When I’m 18, that will be it! When I buy a new Mercedes-Benz, that will be it! When I put that last kid through college, that will be it! When I have paid off the mortgage, that will be it! When I win a promotion, that will be it! When I reach the age of retirement, that will be it! I shall live happily ever after!’ Unfortunately, once we get ‘it’, then ‘it’ disappears. The station somehow hides itself at the end of an endless track. It isn’t the burdens of today that drive men mad. Rather, it is regret over yesterday or fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who would rob us of today. So, stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot more often, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more and cry less. Life must be lived as we go along. The station will come soon enough.” My copy of this writing may not be complete, but you get the point..
“Maybe it’s best to treat happiness like a deer in the forest. Sometimes it will emerge from the woods and pay you a visit. But it dislikes undue attention. And if you chase it, it will run away.”-Phyllis Theroux from Parents Magazine and featured in the Points to Ponder column of the April 1995 Issue of the Reader’s Digest.
One philosopher said, “Trying to live a life filled with happy events is like trying to write a book with nothing but happy endings. We do enjoy the happy ending and read a book vividly to reach it. But, if the happy ending is not preceded by worries and anxieties, it is pointless. In life as well, there can be no happiness without a previous experience of need or unhappiness. To reach the ‘peak’, one must climb from the bottom.”
Margaret Lee Runbeck-20th-Century American writer-said, “Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling.”
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Don Jackson
