By Mary Pupel
EMS Press
Traverse City East MS
1st Place
MS Division, News Writing
Feature Columnist
What defines true happiness? Is it success? Money? Love? I believe the word is a mystery in itself. Its definition is in the hands of the one who feels the sensation.
People live their whole lives looking for happiness, hoping to find it like a light switch in a dark room. But some are never lucky enough. They try to understand something they’ve never known. To feel something that seemingly doesn’t exist.
That is the saddest life I think anyone could live. A man with all the money in the world, with the biggest house on the block may seem to have it all but he lacks one thing; happiness.
He has searched for it in the store, at the bottom of a liquor bottle, took countless relationships and turned them upside down like a picture search, looking for that last word on the list; happiness.
But he failed to look within himself.
According to healthline.com, the number of adults with depression increases by 20 percent each year. How? We live in world full of fast cars, nice clothes and four course meals– the American dream. I believe that majority of this world is stuck in a materialistic mindset where retail therapy is more useful than a deep conversation with someone who can help you move past your problems. During our search for happiness, we become so lost in pointless material, that we only fall deeper and deeper into that sad feeling.
My generation is growing up in a facade. Where happiness is defined by meaningless things. Where many smile at a paycheck but few at the sunrise.
Bob Marley once said “Money is numbers and numbers never end. If it takes money to be happy, the search for happiness will never end.”
I believe this is one of the most important quotes ever because it speaks to the heart of our generation. A generation where, with each swipe of a credit card, we move farther and farther away from happiness, like a lone sailboat drifting off to sea.
Now I’m not saying you can’t have nice things and also be happy. But I think that we commonly search for happiness through material and rarely look deep within ourselves or within the daily blessings that are provided for us.
Each morning you wake up is a gift. No matter how early it is or how tired you still are. Every minute we spend on this earth is a blessing. However it is hidden beneath worries and struggles. They cloud up life making it hard to see the simplicity of it all. The simplicity that we absentmindedly complicate and ignore day in and day out.
For each struggle or annoyance, there is in life, there is a blessing that we are ignoring.
As the Chicago Tribune (as well as many others) once stated so perfectly, “Be thankful for the clothes that fit too snug, because it means you have enough to eat. Be thankful for the taxes you pay, because it means you’re employed. Be thankful that your lawn needs mowing and your windows that need fixing, because it means you have a home. Be thankful for the space you find at the far end of the parking lot, because it means you can walk. Be thankful for the lady who sings off-key behind you in church, because it means you can hear. Be thankful for the alarm that goes off in the early morning, because it means you’re alive.”
Enjoy the simplicity of life and all of its blessings. Smile and find happiness within yourself, within what you have– not the neverending list of things you want. Stop complicating things and be happy.
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It’s a cold fall day, the leaves are changing and the temperatures are dropping. You’re walking downtown and as you enter the Clinch Park tunnel, you begin to hear the sweet sounds of a harmonica. An old man, with long braided gray hair, Frankie Faunce, plays his tunes in the tunnel with more passion and happiness than you’ve ever seen before. And as you awkwardly pass him, unsure of what to do, you notice his small box open to any generous person willing to spare a few dollars or even cents. Was it selfish just to walk by and not leave him anything? Or was it in his best interest?
That’s a question that has been weighing on my mind for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was little, I’ve been surrounded by givers. People who always put others first, whether it be their family or someone they’ve just met.
It seems as if weekly my mom gives or at least offers rides to the homeless or anyone without a ride in general. As an infant, I was frequently held by a man named Tom, who lives under a picnic table at the Civic Center. He has the biggest heart you could ever imagine. In fact, he would always give me the McDonalds toys from the kids meals he would buy. It’s crazy to me how a man with only enough things to fill a garbage bag could still be thinking of others.
He was probably one of the most impactful people in my opinion of whether to give money to the homeless or not.
The most common argument against giving is that they will only fall back into their old habits and buy booze or drugs. But when you think of it, aren’t we exactly the same? Every day, we are faced with a challenge and a choice; do the right thing or do what I usually do. Time after time we make the wrong choice and fall back into our old habits.
For example a man on a diet almost always has a time when he cheats and eats a bag of chips or something else he shouldn’t be eating. But his only source of income doesn’t say, “Sorry you didn’t spend the money we are supplying you with the way we wanted you to, so your paycheck is no longer.”
Because we are only human, and as corny as it sounds, we all make mistakes. We all crawl back into our comfort zone when we’re scared and don’t know what to do, like it’s our favorite blanket.
Maybe people would be more understanding and willing to give if they knew the story of that man who sleeps under the Union Street bridge. But no matter how much we know about the person, we should do the right thing and peek out of the curtain that shadows us from what’s really right and do something we’ve never done before.
We should give to the homeless because they are all alone with no example to strive for. We need to be their strong example and give them the change from our pockets. And then we need to pick them up and drag them back into the real world when they fail to do the right thing because we understand what it’s like to be human.