Wherever You Find Happiness, Seize It!

Explore it. Feel it. Enjoy it. And try to make it last.

In our present world, true happiness has already become somewhat more elusive.

I've met people who are so focused on the end, on the future, that they fail to appreciate and enjoy the present. Many often get caught up in their daily schedules that they lose the fun in doing the things that they do. A lot of us follow routinary activities, aim for efficiency, and then fail to understand the meaning behind all those that we aim for. Happiness, indeed, has seemed to escape many because of the fast pace of the life that we live.

It is therefore more important these days for our senses to become more open to happiness, and to instances that bring them.

Imagine riding a jeepney and enjoying the scenery around. You don't care about the time, or being late for work - you don't even look at your watch. You don't care that the jeepney takes a stop every few minutes to pick up additional passengers, or that the driver is driving too slow. You don't think of the chores that you left behind, or the tasks that await you when you arrive at the office. You just savor that moment as you look at the places that you pass by. 

You don't know whether it would be the same the next time you pass by that place while riding a jeepney, and you don't care. You just love what you're seeing and what you're feeling at the moment. And that's what's important - that you're having a great time and you're feeling pretty good about yourself and about the world. 

You don't want the ride to end. No, not just yet. If you could, you'd prolong the ride, tell the driver to keep on driving. But alas, it has to. You've reached your destination and you need to alight and get to work. 

And as you walk towards the elevator, you have that big smile plastered on your face as you remember all that you've seen. You know you'll probably forget all about what you saw once you face the mountain of paperworks waiting for you, but for the moment you just want to savor the feeling. And you greet everybody good morning when you arrive, starting the day with a smile.

Happiness may have become elusive, but not because it has totally disappeared. It's still all around us, only our senses are not always attuned to it - so many things preoccupy us these days. So when a moment like the one I mentioned above comes...

We must seize it, explore it, feel it, enjoy it, try to make it last, and then share the happiness to others if we can.

PRAYER: Lord let me recognize happiness when I see it, and may I not be too preoccupied to savor it.