Hello I'm Rich Brown and this is my personal website and blog. I'm just your simple, average, down to earth, professional, out gay man and aspiring circuit boy, living in Phoenix, Arizona with a few things to say while trying to find my place among all the scary, conservative, religious nuts in this sick and twisted world.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
The Ultimate Road Trip
I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately ...
happiness: the quality or state of being happy; enjoying, showing, or marked by pleasure, satisfaction, or joy; good fortune; pleasure; contentment; joy.
After having many lengthy discussions with my friends regarding our lives, relationships and other topics, it always comes down to the fact that everyone these days seems to be focused on what defines happiness and actually being happy themselves.
I've given this a lot of thought and I've come to the conclusion that the state of being happy is not really a final destination in itself, it coincides more with the entire journey. At some point in time nearly everyone should reach some state of happiness, however that's not to say that once that state is reached it's never lost. In reality, it's all too quickly lost and sometimes very difficult to find again. Only through introspection, perseverance and dedication can the individual steps for reaching this state be discovered and can the actual state of happiness itself be reached more frequently then not.
I went through a slightly dark time in my life many years ago to which I look back on now as a significant defining time in my life. It was a transitional time for me, a time where I felt I no longer had many close friends, I was newly single and living in a new city, struggling for money, and essentially alone. I had some fleeting moments of happiness but overall I wouldn't look back on that time and say I was happy. I eventually settled into my new life, met some great friends and even met Justin. I was surely on the right track to happiness at this point right? One would think so, but when I reassess that time now, I would say that I was merely content, because I had not truly discovered what was necessary for me to be happy. I will never forget the time when my friend Bernard and I were talking and he said to me "your biggest challenge in life will be to find what it is that will truly make you happy!" That statement always resonated with me for years following that conversation, which finally prompted me to do some philosophical reading and really look deep into myself and figure out what it was that was holding me back from true happiness.
Over the past few years I've really challenged myself, changed my thought process, my outlook on life, my goals and my expectations of not only myself but of others, and I've realized how to reach that state of happiness more often then not. If someone came up to me today and asked "Are you happy?" I would reply "Most definitely yes!" That's not to say my life doesn't have it's ups and downs, after all as I said before, I still believe it's about the journey not the destination.
I won't tell anyone what it is that I discovered that makes me happy because it's truly a personal thing that's unique to each and every individual and something each person has to discover on their own for themselves. There certainly is no set equation that everyone can apply such that (A + B = Happiness), that's just not practical. The key to happiness is not a one size fits all garment and cannot be distributed to the masses. The key almost always lies within yourself and is most often independent of friends, family and society. I've discussed this with other people and they almost always miss the point. I've heard comments like "That person pretends to be happy but I really don't think they are" or "I don't really agree what that person is doing and I think their happiness is just a facade." The problem with these statements is that you cannot look to other people and their actions to form a basis in which to determine your own happiness or even judge their happiness. Happiness is an individual state and not open for direction, judgement or criticism by others. What makes one person happy may not necessarily make you happy, so again it falls back to the fact that each person has to come up with their own personal equation for happiness.
People are unique. Unique in personalities, thinking, desires, morals, goals and values. Even among groups of friends, this uniqueness is what keeps us all from being a bunch of robots. If you can agree that we're all individually unique from each other in so many traits why would you think that we wouldn't also be unique in what makes us each individually happy. I like to use a an example that's near and dear to my own happiness. Attending a circuit party. While thinking about going to a circuit party may actually bring a smile to my face it may to someone else bring forth the though of terror or even disgust. For me the thoughts are about all the great people, the music, feeling emotionally connected to a tribe, and hanging out with my friends. It's these thoughts that make me happy. For someone else they may fear crowds, they may hate dancing, they might not enjoy the music and even be a loner. For this person, what makes me happy, and so many others may actually be something that does the opposite. Now who is right or wrong in this scenario? Am I right to say a Circuit Party makes me feel happy so it must be something that makes everyone happy, or is this other person right in saying a Circuit Party makes me miserable so it's not something anyone should use to associate with a state of happiness. Neither actually, the problem here is actually trying to incorrectly classify someone's path to happiness as right or wrong which is actually something that's very individual. Individual paths to happiness may be right for one and wrong for another, but it doesn't make the event or action either right or wrong in itself.
Because happiness is the ultimate road trip throughout life, there are many paths to achieve it. Just like a real road trip where many different roads can be taken to get to a destination, it's not really about how you get there, rather it's more about the answer to the question of "Was the way you got there the right way for you?" Think about it and trust me when I say that if you dig deep enough you'll figure out what it is in life that makes you happy. Cheers.
That's a great pic of you and Justin. And see now I'd say that you both "look so happy" in it too!
I couldn't agree more with you about the journey not the destination being happiness. It's along the journey through life that we stumble upon heartaches and joys, and although sometimes they might feel "short lived" these experiences do shape us and determine how we feel the next time we come upon joy or heartache down the road. It's all different for different folks, it has to be as we're all unique.
One thing I've learned in my 56 years *gasp* is that experiences don't "make me", rather they "add" to whom I will evolve into becoming. It's a never-ending shaping.
Great post!
|______________________________________________________________________ posted by Jude @ Friday, March 21, 2008 8:18:00 AM
You two look great! I hope that the trip was safe and fun.
Happy Easter
|______________________________________________________________________ posted by Jeremy Ryan @ Sunday, March 23, 2008 7:04:00 PM
