Happiness Happens

March 2, 2011

As usual, I volunteered for the easier task of waking up our son and his older sister. My wife was left with the much harder task of getting our eight month old daughter up. Barely awake and still in his pajamas, our son cut the cake to welcome in his sixth birthday. I then took off to the airport to catch a red-eye flight to Las Vegas to join my business partners and friends who had gotten there a day earlier.

Our son didn’t want a birthday party that evening because his best friend wasn\’t going to be around to celebrate it with him. So he chose for a simple cake cutting in the wee hours of the morning – his best friend was there with him and that\’s all that mattered to him. I couldn\’t understand his thinking. He was being too emotional for all I care. There would be a lot more birthdays I could celebrate with him in the future, I knew. But I wasn’t too sure about the prospects of making money in the future – that had to be done there and then. Money waits for nobody, I knew that also.

March 3, 2011

The dinner at a famous steakhouse in Las Vegas was winding down and there appeared to be a problem — we didn’t make the minimum tab. There was a minimum amount required to spend for having our own private room at the restaurant and we came up about $1,000.00 short. That was the most a party of less than ten people could do, there was too much food left over on the table already. The dining-room attendant was eager to help and mentioned that they serve a rare cognac which costs about $900.00 for a 2 ounce serving. One of the guys at the table immediately ordered it.

A half an hour later, a pair of white gloves brought in an elaborately decorated bottle of cognac (I am so glad that I forgot the name of it) and poured in approximately 2 ounces into a snifter. None of us at the table had ever seen liquor so expensive, so we waited anxiously to hear about it from the person who ordered it. He raised the glass to take a sip, but immediately put it down saying that he didn’t like the smell of it. However he offered it to anybody who wanted to give it a try. For some reason, there were no takers. I wanted to try it, but my pride kept me from taking it. My brain warned me about what that drink had become – a hand-me-down.

As we walked out of the restaurant, we were all smiling and laughing. But I wasn’t happy, I felt unsatisfied. It wasn\’t just the thought about the cognac that was left on the table – there was some sort of an emptiness in everything I was looking at. My stomach was definitely full, but I felt a big void in me.  Then I thought about my son cutting the cake a day earlier with a big smile on his face. Was he happy? Or was that smile same as the one I have on? I tried not to ponder.

March 2, 2013

It was the second day of a three day fasting retreat where the attendees lived only on water and Divine grace. In the afternoon, I called my son on the phone to wish him on his birthday. I couldn’t see his face, but he sounded happy. His dad was still his best friend, but he has other friends now unlike two years ago when he had difficulty finding and keeping friends. I couldn’t be on the phone with him for too long since the retreat instructions included limited contact with the outside world. He too was eager to hang up the phone as his uncle had shown up with boxes of pizza.

March 3, 2013

There was plenty of rice soup and stir fried lentils available to break the three day fast. But nobody seemed too concerned about what’s on the table, rather all were interested in sharing their experiences over the past three days. I felt happy. The void was long gone – the Holy Spirit had filled it with joy.

As I left the retreat center in Baltimore, MD, I felt a sense of fullness all around me. All those little streams of joy had turned into a river, “Now it was a river I could not wade across. The water had risen so high, I would have to swim – a river that was impassable” (Ezekiel 47:5).

What is happiness?

I am sure that every person has their own definition of happiness. But for a long time in my life, I sought happiness without having any idea of what I was looking for. Money, possession, food, sex – I kept changing my definition of happiness. Neither me nor my family could find or keep friends because I forced them to move from one state to another, and from one city to another every other year in search of happiness. My wife and kids silently followed wherever I went and in the process mastered the technique of living out of boxes. I was fully aware of my family\’s predicament, but I ignored it. I justified those difficulties as small sacrifices on our way to \’happyland\’.

Last year I finally defined happiness – Having all the things one would need in abundance. But the problem with this definition is to determine what one would need rather than what one would want. I have made many critical mistakes in the past by identifying my wants as my needs. Therefore I knew that I would need lots of guidance to discern needs from wants, so I asked Jesus for help.

Jesus said, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you besides. (Matthew 6:33). Then He made it even clearer through St. Paul, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of food and drink, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:17).

People often expect happiness to be an end result. Unfortunately, it is a by-product rather than the final product itself, thus it is always susceptible to being thrown away. There is nothing anyone could do to create happiness – it needs to be found in ordinary things we do everyday. True happiness is a gift of God, “So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). There is joy in selfless actions. I have been trying to ditch the selfishness in me by trying to do everything for the glory of God, whether it be the amazing act of waking up in the morning, the reluctant act of taking a shower, the onerous act of going to work, the wonderful act of chitchatting with kids, the loving act of holding wife\’s hand, or the exciting act of writing this article.

On a side note: I used \”abundance\” in my definition of happiness, rather than “ Give us today our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). What I meant was that I only need the daily bread, but lots of it. One might think that I am still greedy or insecure in asking for abundance. On the contrary, my only reason for wanting abundance has to do with my intention of \”taking refuge under His wings\”. In fact, abundance is what separates provision of God from that of this world. God’s abundance is fulfilling, whereas things of this world – even when there are leftovers – leave you unhappy and unsatisfied. God didn’t send His only begotten Son to this sinful world so that those who believe in Him could merely get by, instead “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).