If you Google “Happiness”
on the internet, which is where I get a lot of my information these days, you
will quickly find a quote which folks have used in various forms from Henry
David Thoreau. Thoreau has written that “Happiness is like a butterfly; the more
you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to
other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.”
Different Native American tribes interpret butterflies in
their own way, but generally, they're thought to represent change and
transformation, comfort, hope and joy.
I remember chasing
after Swallowtail butterflies on their annual migrations and just when you get
close enough, they casually move along on the summer breeze. I suspect there are childhood memories of
many adults doing the same thing and learning the same lesson. And if we’ve run the gauntlet of life on this
planet for enough years, it’s very easy to relate that experience to the
concept of happiness that also can be very elusive.
Our culture considers the path to happiness strewn with all
imaginable sorts of worldly stuff which the Mad Men of Madison Avenue
subliminally and not so subliminally barrage us with over the course of almost
every waking hour on the planet. One of Best Buy’s ads said it all; “I want it
all and I want it now!” We’re definitely
an “instant gratification” society. Don Draper
of the 1960’s Mad Men advertising series wrapped things up neatly when he made
a pitch to a CEO for their business; “What is happiness? It’s the moment before we need more
happiness.” Advertisers and salespersons
know that looking for happiness in all the wrong worldly places can be very short
lived!
But if we simply go about our life following
the greatest commandment which Jesus proclaimed of loving our creator and our
brothers and sisters, the butterfly will glide in and sit on our shoulder. We can experience a lasting happiness in life when we help
someone who has no possibility of returning the favor. If we do something for someone and expect
something in return, we’re doing business!
This may bring a temporary happiness, but not the internal joy that has
lasting power in our life.
We will
face difficult circumstances in the course of a life that are beyond our
control with one exception—how we respond. And we should be careful not to
confuse temporary, external circumstance, happiness with eternal, internal, joy
that reveals which gods we worship in life. We were created to be forever
joyful which I consider to be a more informed extension of happiness that will
dwell peacefully in our heart.
