Happiness -- It Is Like The Horizon

Happiness is like the horizon: 

Once there was a man who saw the horizon off in the distance. When he saw how beautiful it looked, and how the sun and sky caressed it, he decided he wanted to live there. He decided that if he could get to the horizon, then he would be happy. 

He began to walk toward the horizon, but no matter how far he walked, the horizon always stayed far off in the distance. He arrived at places that he thought were on the horizon, only to discover that those places were just as far removed from the horizon as he was when he began. But the man was convinced that when he reached the horizon he would be happy. So he began to run. He ran and he ran. He ran for days, until he could run no more and collapsed onto the dusty ground. The horizon always remained in the distance.

The man decided that he needed a new approach. Walking and running were not fast enough. He needed something faster. So he worked for many hours at a job he hated in the effort of squirreling away enough money to buy a fast car. He ignored his family and friends more and more. It was okay. He would spend time with them when he reached the horizon. He was doing it for them. When he made his home on the horizon, then they would be happy too. 

After many hears of neglecting those about whom he cared, he bought his car. He immediately sped off toward the skyline, but it remained distant. So he worked harder, neglected his loved ones more, and bought a faster car. Once more he was disappointed. He researched faster cars and worked hard to buy them, ignoring everyone and everything in his quest, but always, he failed. 

He eventually concluded that cars would never get him there. So he decided he needed an airplane. After many more years of work, and isolation, and neglect, he bought a plane. It did not get him where he wanted to be. So he focused on more work and ignored everyone and everything even more. His consolation was the constant self-reminder that he was doing it all for them " when he reached his goal, his family and friends would be happy along with him. But his goal never turned out to be the end. There was always further to go. So he concluded he needed a jet, then a rocket, but always, he found himself disappointed and no closer to reaching his goal than the day when he started. The horizon eluded him. 

The man died, alone and bitter. He sacrificed his time and his family and his friends for nothing. He could not understand why his family and friends were not appreciative of his efforts " he was, after all, doing it all for them. His life was cluttered with cars, and planes, and jets, and rockets, none of which could love him, and those that could love him were gone " they either left him, or they passed on, vainly waiting for him to notice them. 

The man never knew that he had always been standing on the horizon. His whole life was spent on a horizon, but he never noticed because he was too busy trying to get to a horizon that was not his to reach. Just as he sacrificed all that he was, and all that he had, and all whom he loved, to get somewhere he could not reach, millions of other men were doing the same in the attempt to get to where he was. 

The beauty of living on a planet that is round is that the journey never has an end, and that every place is a horizon for someone. All those who wish to reach the horizon need do is accept that they are already there. The horizon is where they are, wherever they are. The choice is simply whether they will live on the horizon where they already are, or work to get somewhere they can never reach. Appreciate perspective! All reality is simply perspective and nothing else.