Snapple, and the Pursuit of Happiness

It’s New Years Eve 2004 and I’m contemplating a possible New Years Resolution. Sure there’s the usual, quit smoking, stop gambling, go to the gym, etcetera but I know none of these things will actually occur so it seems like a waste to choose one of them. Instead I just decide to focus on personal happiness. I know, it sounds…hokey, but for me, to me, it makes sense.

You see from the surface it would appear that I have enough to be happy about. I’m young, cute, healthy. I have a great family, good friends, a great job and all the material wealth I could possibly need. Something though, something is missing. I don’t know what it is that is going to make me happy but the pursuit of this happiness is underway!

One of the first thoughts that came to mind was career satisfaction. Am I happy at work? Well that’s a tough question to answer. Do I like my job? Sometimes, but isn’t that the case with any job? Some days its grand, some days it sucks. What I came up with was yes, I like my career field it has promise. A promise I don’t want to wait for. I want a promotion! By the middle of January I had one and I thought to myself ‘Wow! This New Years Resolution thing is a piece of cake. Let the personal happiness come rolling in!’

I went to work feeling a bit glib. Here it is only the first month of the year and I’ve already accomplished my resolution. I looked sorrowfully at my co-workers with their patches and year long gym memberships. May they too see their resolutions come to fruition.

All to soon I came to realize my celebration was a bit presumptious. It turns out that the promotion was the OPPOSITE of happiness. The five months or so that I held that position were the worse five months in my recent memory.

So the career isn’t the problem. What else is there? Hmmmm, companionship? See I’ve never been one to seek out such a thing. When it comes along great but when it doesn’t that’s okay too. My mother made a mistake going through with her first marriage because she thought it was expected of her. It is for that reason she raised me quite the opposite. While its great to love and be loved it’s not necessary for sucess or happiness. Maybe she was wrong? Maybe I’m not happy because I’m alone? So I commence with the new search.

Now my search isn’t a terribly vocal or aggresive one. I think I just gave less surly looks and hoped that would be motivation enough for whomever I was interested in to pursue me, and it was. In the next couple months I dated a gay guy, a married guy and a miriad of guys that just weren’t perfect. In all this dating there was a time or two that I did truely feel that companionship I thought I was longing for and while it made me feel safe and content it still wasn’t that feeling of happiness I was so in search of.

So not career, not companionship, what, what, what else is there?!?!?

Let me digress briefly. I’m in the car the other day discussing my dillema with a friend. The fact that happiness is completely evading me, dodging me at every corner has got me quite down. I’m so severly depressed by it all that I’m convinced that even my Snapple hates me. I proceed to explain to my friend that everytime I open one the lid says ‘You are not a winner!’ sooo mockingly. She consols me, assures me that everything will be fine and suggests I get a hobby. I act unappreciative and roll my eyes at her suggestion (this whole ordeal has made me quite bitter).

Okay so now I’m just giving up. Maybe you can’t seek out happiness. Maybe it has to find you. Maybe all this moving about I’m always doing is making me more difficult to find. Either way I resign. I will be yet another failed New Years Resolutioner just like my friend with the patch (at least I didn’t almost die trying to smoke a ciggerette while wearing one).

So this morning I awake, not happy but okay with being not happy. I go through the motions of getting ready for work and head to the fridge. I grab my Snapple and there it is, printed clearly on the lid, ‘You are a winner!’. In all the months that I have been chasing this happiness it has never said ‘You are a winner!’ and the instant I give up there it is, my happiness, in the form of a snapple lip gloss (my prize). A sigh of relief is exhaled and a joyous day follows.

I’m in the best of moods, happy at last and driving home from work. I’m listening to the radio when I hear someone make the statement ‘happiness is fleeting’. I think on it for a moment, maybe their right. I can only hope my next Snapple doesn’t agree.

A Thought on Progression (or lack there of)

A thought came to me today, a thought of hope and despair. I am on this track in my life right now that is supposed to bring about great rewards but when properly analyzed this path that I’m on has no clear end. I’m being vague.
Let me start by saying, I know, I shouldn’t complain. I am generally thought to be pretty and funny and smart and ambitious, yadda, yadda, yadda. I know that I have a lot going for me. I know I have the ability to put words together to form sentences that clearly portray the message I intend to communicate. I know that is a good thing, a thing many struggle to do. But do these words capture your mind and take hold so that you wish they would go on for 500 pages? Is my writing so great that thousands of people would pay for the privilege of reading it? I don’t think so.

I know that I am smart. I have the ability to comprehend all sorts of things. I can read, write, add, subtract and can even sit around with my friends and discuss matters difficult for many to understand such as quantum physics. But is this intelligence such that it can send men to the moon? It is not. I will not be receiving any prizes for my amazing abilities in science or math (trust me!).

And yes, what girl doesn’t want to be considered pretty? I know my fair skin and big blue eyes are a good combination but will this help me in any career? My looks are not so that people would pay to have my picture or stand in line simply to catch a glimpse of my face.

And what of art? I can put a pencil to a paper and with an ample amount of time recreate anything two dimensional, is that more then most can do? Perhaps. Is that enough? No. I do not have the talent it takes to take the tools of an artist and use creativity to create something that has never been seen before, something so well appriciated it should grace the halls of museums and the halls of gallerys.

I know so many wildly talented people I sometimes wonder how my mediocrity is looked over. Does no one else realize I am the only one around just going through the motions? Perhaps the problem doesn’t lie in a lack of ability to shine but rather a desire. Maybe the fact that I don’t write 500 pages worth of words and attempt to get them read is the only reason they are not. Perhaps the fact that I don’t attempt to create art is the reason I am not an artist. I think that what I lack isn’t a talent but rather it’s the drive to figure out what that talent is. Just because i wasn’t born with the knowledge of my talent doesn’t mean I don’t have one. Perhaps I could be a writer, an artist AND a physicist if only I would make an attempt.

Ah and there comes the real thing I’m lacking, guts. A fear of failure prevents effort. And the funny thing is my very logical and analytical mind realizes that failure doesn’t mean failure! Failure can very well mean progress, so long as something is learned by the failure. One could write five books before one was great. Or one could discover one was a horrible writer only to give up on this craft and move on to art to discover one was truly meant to be a sculptor. While I know that I will have to try if I ever want to feel more then so-so my irrational, emotional self keeps imposing these chains holding me close to what is safe and ho-hum.

Maybe I should go sky diving.