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HAPPINESS
“What must I do to discover happiness?” asked the beautiful young girl.
The
gardener let out an innocent laugh.
“Don’t
look for it,” he replied.
The
girl was confused.
“How
can you say that?” she asked somewhat irritated by his laughing. “Everybody looks for
happiness...”
"...And very few find it...” interrupted the gardener, still laughing.
The
impulsive young girl’s indignation was rising, and this did nothing but augment the man’s
amusement.
“Look
...” continued the gardener trying to calm her. “Everybody is looking for happiness. Some look for
it in the person they love, others in amassing money and goods, others in the attainment of their
dreams... Everybody goes through life pursuing a dream to achieve, and when they succeed in it,
they perceive a happiness which they believe will last forever. But, some time later the monotony
and the disappointment return, and everybody looks again for a new dream to achieve, until they
obtain it and they again fall into disillusion and so on.”
“You
mean its not possible to find lasting happiness?” the girl asked him again.
“Oh,
no! I didn’t mean to say that.”
“So,
then, how does one obtain lasting happiness?” insisted the girl, visibly
impatient.
The
gardener made a gesture to her to calm down.
“It
isn’t obtained,” he answered. “You cannot obtain something that has always been within
you.”
“Gardener you’re going to drive me crazy. If I’ve always had it, how is it I don’t perceive
it?”
“By
any chance do you notice the flower you wear in your hair?” asked the gardener.
“When
I stop to think about it, yes,” she answered raising her hand to the flower.
“By
any chance don’t you realize how happy you were when you stop to think about your
past?”
“Well... Yes...” she stuttered. “But ... .”
“Well,
stop to think about the happiness you feel now,” the gardener interrupted her. “Everybody behaves
like the man who spent the day looking for his glasses, to end up realizing that he was wearing
them.”
“We’ve
always been happy, but we only realize it when time has elapsed and the remoteness lets us see that
experienced in its entirety.”
“Happiness has always been inside you, it has never left. Not even when life has made you go
through pain and grief. You just didn’t see it, your stubbornness for finding it and for running
away from hurt didn’t let you see it.”
“Pay
attention to your life, to what surrounds you, to what you are feeling... and you will find that
you are already happy, at this time, happiness forms a part of you, because happiness is like a
green meadow where life spins its dances of life and
death, of love and solitude.”
And
stroking the girl’s cheek, he said sweetly:
“Don’t
look for happiness. If you want to look for something ... look for life itself.”
Illustrations by Flor Navarro
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