Mexico is way the hell down there, and you’re in here.
Lately I’ve been thinking hard about the things that I chase in my pursuit of happiness. With few exceptions, they’re just that: things. I’m a part of the rat race and it sucks sometimes.
On more than one occasion it’s dawned on me that people who’ve never had anything in the way of exposure or material possessions have to be miserable, but I’m not so sure now. Maybe they’re better off. Or maybe not. I’ve heard that a person can’t miss what he’s never had, but unless one lives in a vacuum, he’s got to have an idea that he doesn’t have anything, right? Perhaps, but if he’s never had it, it probably doesn’t matter to him in any real sense.
Enjoying the accoutrement of middle class existence, particularly as a child, can set a person up to carve out an empty existence. No one wants to grow up to have less than he had when he was a child, but depending upon the way things shake out, he may have to practically kill himself to maintain that standard of living.
Is it me to whom I’m referring? Yes and no. My life often feels empty, but not because I’m trying to recreate the bliss of my comfortable, carefree childhood. I do okay as an adult, after all. My life often feels shallow and empty because it’s becoming increasingly difficult to convince myself that I’m coming any closer to sustained happiness.
There was a time when I thought about happiness within a day-to-day context, but I’m at a point where I consider what I have to look forward to 40 years from now.
Things don’t make me happy. I like what I like, mind you, but I have enough of everything I like and yet I’m still running.
This might suggest that I’m unhappy but that isn’t quite so. I’m in a much better space than I have been in years past, and in the micro I feel good. But what does my life mean?
Some great reward, this thing called life. And yet I’m grateful. There are people who died wishing it wasn’t there time to go. It’s my time now because I’m alive. I just need to figure out what it’s my time to do.