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Pursue Your Happiness

I like it when I get an idea for these inspirational reflections when I wasn’t looking for one.  This happened to me recently when I was on a trip.  I had to travel to Pennsylvania for a meeting.  I did not expect anything new or different.  I have been to Pennsylvania many times.  I actually know the state fairly well.  I have lived both east and west of Pennsylvania.  I know eastern PA, as they call it.  Philadelphia is one of my favorite cities.  It is the center of American Quakerism.  I know the other end of the state, anchored by Pittsburgh.  I like to visit the Amish country of Pennsylvania. 

I was even on a section of the interstate where there was no toll as I left Ohio to drive into the Quaker state.  So I entered Pennsylvania without slowing down.  And yet I noticed.  I suppose all states try to position their signs welcoming you to their state in a place where you are bound to see it.  And there was the sign telling me I was entering Pennsylvania.  “Welcome,” the sign signaled.   

For some reason, I then saw the subtitle: “Pursue your happiness.”  Reading that made me sit up.  I don’t recall ever seeing that phrase.  Maybe it is new?  May I don’t pay attention very well?  I don’t know.  But I liked that sign.  In fact, it made me laugh a bit.  And I knew I had to reflect on it. 

“Pursue your happiness.”  Three words---very simple words.  The verb, pursue, is a great verb.  Pursuing is something you can do.  People don’t do it for you.  In most cases, it is a choice.  You can pursue if you want to, but no one can make you pursue something or somebody.  The way I read that word, pursuing does not come with guarantees.  I have pursued things that I did not get.  So pursuing is an activity that may or may not give you what you want. 

And then there is the noun in the phrase: happiness.  Happiness seems to be the quest of Americans in general.  I know all college students tell me they want to be happy.  Actually, so do I!  I like it that the Pennsylvania sign tells us to pursue our own happiness.  Pursue your happiness.  That adjective personalizes it.  As I drove my car into the state, the sign encouraged me to pursue my happiness.  I was eager to go for it! 

I laughed again.  Finally, I know where I can pursue happiness: in Pennsylvania.  I have tried it in so many other places: Indiana, North Carolina, Massachusetts and Ohio.  I have even lived abroad three or four times pursuing happiness.  Now I know where to go into order to do the pursuing.  Apparently, I have been living in the wrong places! 

I think folks in Pennsylvania have it right.  You can pursue happiness there.  What they may not think is true is the fact you can pursue happiness in the other forty-nine states, too.  In fact, I am confident you can pursue happiness any place you find yourself.  Perhaps happiness is place-specific, but for the most part I think happiness is tangentially related to place.  For example, I don’t think I am any more likely to be happy in Lancaster, PA than I am in Lancaster, OH or any other Lancaster (even Lancaster England, which I really like).  And I suspect there are some unhappy people in all the Lancasters.  So it is probably not just the place. 

I am sure there are many ways to be happy.  But I am also confident happiness is not a lasting experience.  To continue to be happy requires that it be nurtured and nourished.  That is why happiness for me is tied up with the spiritual.  The happiness associated with material things typically is short-lived.  We get used to what once made us happy and we find it now normal and humdrum.  New cars are like that and most other material things.   

Spiritual happiness is not momentary.  It can be nurtured and it becomes deeper and more pervasive in our lives.  Spiritual happiness both grounds us and lets us soar.  It grounds us because spiritual happiness is in some ways transcendent.  That is to say, the source of happiness is beyond us.  We are not solely dependent on ourselves as the source of happiness.  For me spiritual happiness is grounded in both God and God’s community.  Both transcend my own little self.  And the good news is both of these sources never dry up, become humdrum and potentially boring.  They continue to source my happiness. 

The other thing I appreciate about God and the spiritual community is the encouragement they give me to get outside of myself.  Happiness is often a self-indulgent experience.  By that I mean it is for me---it is mine.  Spiritual sourcing of happiness typically offers me a sense of being happy myself, but my happiness is inclusive.  I am happy with someone or something else.  I am happy God is in it with me.  I am happy the community accepts me, values me and expects things from me.   

I can’t use up either of these resources.  The chances of my continual happiness are great.  Daily God continues to be fresh.  The community predictably is there and both gives generously to me and asks me to be generous in return.  I am happy to do this. 

So thanks to Pennsylvania for allowing me to pursue happiness.  And I say to Pennsylvania, I can do it anywhere I am.  Thank God! 

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