There is a time for all things. There is time to think and there is time to act. The time for thinking is over once there are no more questions; once you know the answer. So why then do we sometimes keep thinking about things we already know we have to do? Maybe because thinking is easier than acting. But this is only true in the short term, and that is the rub isn’t it? That we are programmed by some force- whether it is nature or nurture matters not, because we are already here- to live in the present, to choose convenience over conscience, to do the expedient thing rather than the right thing, and to sacrifice our future selves for staying comfortable where we are.

If I have free will, if it exists, then I choose to use it to fight everyday against this impulse to sell out my future for today. Father help me, Spirit guide me, and Christ be with me.   

Have you ever heard someone say, “Some people don’t know how to be happy?” My concern is not why people might say this or what they might mean when they say it. My concern is what is implied in the phrase itself. What interests me is that the phrase assumes happiness is a something you can know how to do— that is to say that happiness is a type of knowledge. This to me begs a thousand questions, but here I shall be satisfied with just a few, and they follow:

If being happy takes some kind of knowledge, then can it be learned?

Can those who know how to be happy teach others? or other wise stated, Can one teach happiness?

If it can be taught and learned, then where are the teachers of happiness?

 Lastly, if it cannot be taught or learned is it really knowledge— can someone learn to be happy?

Some might think I am asking stupid questions. It might be obvious that happiness can or cannot be taught to others, but it is not so to me. I would like to think we can learn to be happy, but this is problematic. If we can learn to be happy in the same way we can learn mathematics, then why is there no agreed upon method to teach it? Everyone seems to find happiness in different ways. There seems no one prescription for human happiness. One man’s joys is another’s blight.

I do not however think our race hopeless. Rather, it is quite the opposite. I see happiness in people, I see it in myself, and I see it in my friends however fleeting it might be. I also see that we can’t seem to tell each other how to be happy. Each must find it on her own, if ever at all. I guess I must at last conclude, as Plato did of virtue, that if it cannot be taught or learned it must be a gift from the gods— a blessing from on high.

savesthedayconfessions:

i-shall-grow

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ofmyreverberations:

Stephen Colbert on “Whose Line Is It Anyways?”

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thesexkitten:

omfgg

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is for romantics. If you want to create something you have to drag it kicking and screaming from your mind. Writers block is for losers. No excuses, play like a champion.

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