Happiness is…
In this quest for happiness, we easily are led astray. We focus on the things that we think might give us happiness… Usually this revolves around something monetarily; perhaps power or fame… But real happiness is when you realize that the best things in life aren’t really things at all.
This morning was a blast from the past as I attended a church service for the kids’ cherub choir performance. It was a required attendance, and while I could have just as easily slept in, I thought it appropriate to show up. Besides, who knows whom I might run into. I grew up in this synod, and while this church was never my home church, I knew many people in this community.
Fatigue steals my thoughts, streaks past my eyes when I am trying to concentrate. The only moments I have an opportunity to think are fleeting, when I’m driving, six hundred miles away from the place where I can write it all down.
My brain is full. It’s tired. I wander around the inner fields of my neuronal pathways with glimpses of Boethius and Socrates, arguing about the beauty of poetry. A tally of the things I have to accomplish in a short week’s time dances with the grocery list and other things I have to remember. “Neurosurgery, this is Ash.” I start to answer my cell phone this way, and the details of calls to insurance companies swim through my dreams.
Empathy in my job is important. It’s what drives me to go above and beyond for every family. My instincts and experience are what push me in the direction of urgency or accommodation depending on the circumstances. My empathy is what will make me a great doctor one day
It comes down to the same basic law of evolution that I’ve just described here:
Those who live the lives of their dreams are the ones with the flexibility to overcome the road blocks that fall between them and their goals.
Once there was a girl who suffered. She suffered from every imaginable affliction, though none were so tangible as the situations she put herself into.
She instinctually ran from suffering. She wanted to make the world a better place because she wanted to end suffering. She has a pure heart, through and through, yet could not get the karma pool to return the great passion of goodness she put out there.
Yet for some reason, terrible things kept happening to her. She kept doing things that made people hate her. She kept having friends stab her in the back. The pain she went through was immeasurable.
