Tuesday, April 16, 2024

HAPPINESS IS LIKE A BUTTERFLY

RESTING BUTTERFLY I
RESTING BUTTERFLY II

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.


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