Where Did It Go?

A friend’s death and his teenage philosophy of life raise a lasting question: What does it mean to run out of time?

I have a framed saying on my office wall that reads: “Happiness is not a matter of events. It depends on the tides of the mind.” The quote, by writer Alice Meynell, was given to me by a social worker who came to see me while questioning an engagement. After several visits, she broke it off and moved to Atlanta. Before leaving, she gave me these words.

Happiness is an elusive treasure in our lives. I was taught by a mentor years ago that “happiness is the art of knowing how to suffer well.” This kind of thinking probably does not sit well with most. “Suffering” and happiness appear at first glance to be opposites and connecting them seems strange at best.

The affliction of our modern civilization, myself included, is not knowing how to handle the suffering inside us. Instead we cover it up with consumption: clothes, trinkets, alcohol, medication.

We can go nowhere without being bombarded by devices meant to cover up the suffering inside us. Count the pharmaceutical ads on TV alone, promising to make us happy, to make us “feel” better — which never happens.

So I turn back to my mentor’s words: “suffer well.” The question for me, then, becomes: how does suffering bring me to happiness? I somehow know that the answer is not “out there.” It is within me. Scientist Louis Agassiz put it this way: “Study life, not books.” Our tendency is to look outside ourselves for answers about the world, our family, even ourselves — always “out there.”

I had a telephone call from a woman I had last seen over ten years ago. She had read one of the Insights articles, and it stirred up thoughts and feelings of “back then.” I think of her as a seeker for meaning and happiness. She has had more than her share of “suffering,” but the longer we talked, the more excited she became about her life. Her happiness now has been found in a church congregation, after leaving a church she had been active in for a number of years, among people who appear to think and believe “like her.” I wondered as I listened how much she had looked into herself to know how mindful she was that her happiness has to do with being with others who are like-minded. What happens when we meet folk who are not like-minded?

We seem to live in a time when we congregate with those who believe and think like us, and find it difficult to listen to those who don’t. They make us unhappy, even mad; we “suffer” in their presence. It’s not just people, either — we find “suffering” in differences of opinion, in watching the news. So we avoid them. We avoid the “suffering,” instead of seeking to “suffer well.”

So how do I learn to “suffer” better — to look within myself and learn more about who I am? Not an easy task. Each of us has been taught how to see and believe, by parents, teachers, clergy, and others in our lives. It is difficult to rethink what we have learned from people we have loved, and still love and respect.

Becoming mindful of myself, and learning who I am, is a lifelong process. Getting unstuck from what we’ve learned, and learning not to dislike those who don’t think like me, is learning to “suffer well” — and thus to find happiness.

The world we seem to live in now focuses on increments – minutes, hours, days, etc.,