Butterfly on my Shoulder

“Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”


I have to start by saying, it is so nice to talk to people about their problems, again.  For almost a year now, most people felt like I had enough on my plate and wouldn't share their plate with me.  All the while, I was begging people to share with me because it makes your own plate of chocolate (mine ALWAYS has chocolate on it) look like carrots and peas.  Many times, helping other people out with their struggles, helps us figure out our own.  In the last several months, as I have learned of things that those dear to me and maybe not so near to me, have been going through, I have come to recognize the same constant in all the conversations.  Happiness.  That word should be a paragraph.  It says so many things.  We seek happiness, we long for it, pursue it, hope for it, pray for it, wish for it, need it, love it, fear it, don't know what to do with it, run from it. All the while, it is chasing after us.  


Happiness comes in waves or moments.  Maybe it is the butterflies that you get after a first kiss, maybe it is basking in the sun, the first time your son smiles at you, the way your daughter's hair smells. Maybe, it is from success at your job or in a sport.  We all have our own definition of the word.  No one can be happy all the time and no one can survive this world without a little bit of it at many different times.  No one can give it to you.  You can feel it with a person, but they don't define it for you.  Other times, happiness is letting go and letting be.  You can't buy it or bottle it, but you can decide to let it in.  Through all the crap that life serves, we can decide our own fate...happiness in the quiet moments, in the dark moments, in the joyful moments, in the busy moments.  It comes and it goes, but we can only make ourselves happy.  You can't reflect it onto someone else if you aren't glowing with it.


So, for a moment, come sit with me in this field of grass. Watch the beauty of the butterflies soaring around.  Leave your plate at home and just breath.  Quietly, a butterfly will land on your shoulder and sit a while.