I Met Up with Happiness At a CHEVRON Gas Station!

It was a spiritual exercise someone had challenged a
group of us to do: expect happiness, within a week
of deciding that we were looking for it.

We were told that we were "guaranteed" to get happiness,
once we're focused on finding it.

So, all week, my expectations were HIGH.

Would my happiness come in the form of a lottery ticket?



For a millisecond, I was tempted to go to the corner store
to purchase a Lotto ticket to ensure happiness showed up
in the form of a windfall of millions of dollars to use at my
disposal.




Then, I began to wonder if that's what would truly make me happy...
winning millions of dollars and being set for life.

hmmm.


As thoughts of idling my life away at some beachfront
home on some idyllic island flooded my mind, right
in the middle of the thought... I began to get bored.

I really, truly got bored thinking about winning those millions and having
nothing to do but waste away each moment of every day.


Even when I thought of putting the millions of dollars
to good use by helping other people find their way in
life... I got bored at the thought.

People truly don't need me to help them find their way.

So the thought of taking millions from "over here" and placing them "over there" to get some program going to help people...bored me. Truly, the thought honestly bored me.

Some people are cut out for "service work," and I bless them because I'm not.

Um. um...um...

What would make me happy?

Honestly.

What would make me happy?


I mean I was thinking of a state of beingness that would
take me out of my current world.

I wanted to want this "happiness" so badly. I wanted it to be something that I was "missing" in my life!

I longed to embrace this "elusive" happiness
that so many people seem so busy searching for
throughout their lives.


I began to look back at different periods of
my life and thought over "the things" I thought would make me happy.

Over the course of the week, I kept thinking, then discarding
in short fashion, all the things that I thought would bring happiness.

One by one, I discarded them.



No. That wouldn't work for me today.

No. This other thing that I so badly wanted also wouldn't work
for me today.

So, unable to come up with a single thing I thought would add to my current state of well being, I finally gave up.

It was just one day before the promised "deadline" to find this happiness.

I figured if the prediction were true, the Universe would have to find a way to truly surprise me.

I went along my business.

Then, just like that...happiness appeared...right in front of me.


I'd just started pumping gas into my tank, when I looked up
and saw a breathtaking form of happiness.

The image I saw was a young woman about the age of 23 years old who
was skipping and smiling broadly as she went back to her car from
the shop at the Chevron gas station.


It was the Saturday right after Thanksgiving, so I thought maybe, she was still joyous about something that occurred on Thanksgiving Day.

But no, there seemed to be something much deeper about the mirage
I saw. There was true bliss...true peace...true joy.

Never one to be shy, I asked her outright: "Why are you so joyous? What is making you so "happy?"

She said, "I feel so good because everywhere I go I am just seeing how beautiful people are and how happy every body is everywhere..."

I asked, "Really, do you see that?"
She said, "YES! YES!"


I gasped, as this little 23 year old wise woman bent into me as I continued to pump the gas and said, "I have something to share with you....because someone shared it with me many years ago, and it's been working for me ever since."

She asked,"Do you want to know what it is?"

By then...I could barely wait to hear her "secret."
She continued, "that person shared with me a smile so many years ago...and it changed everything for me in that moment."


I looked in amazement at this wise-woman/girl-child, as she continued, "A simple smile changed my life and my way of looking at life, and I've been trying to pass it on ever since."

I could not believe that this conversation was taking place...
I could not believe the uncanny timing of me having this particular
conversation with this little woman less than 24 hours before "happiness" was supposed to show up.

I stared back in amazement at her and in an enthusiastic fashion told
her how fascinated I was at this philosophy of life that she carried
with her where ever she went.

She said, "Yes. And because I want you to carry it with you, too..."

She then gently unfolded her hands and stepped closer to me,"I want you to have this happiness penny."

A penny.


A penny.

She was sharing with me a penny that she might have just found on the ground, as
it looked as if several cars had run over it.

I gasped and thanked her profusely for the penny.

How did she know?
How could she know?

Everywhere I go, I do get joyous and..happy...every single time I
find a penny.


I get happy...yes...happy...to get a penny.

Now, this stranger was sharing her happiness with me and passing it on
to me in the form of a penny, a symbol both she and I seem to appreciate
for its simply.

I grasped the penny as if indeed it were a multi-million dollar package someone had just hand delivered to me.

I saw the young woman, whose name is Victoria, hop and skip her way to her car, as she waited for her friend, who was still in the shop at the station.

I couldn't let this special "happy" moment pass, without some sort of recording.

I grabbed my iPhone, raced out of my car and asked her permission to take her picture.

I tried to get one of "happiness" by herself, but her best friend, Nicole, who had joined her, also wanted in. I asked Victoria, whether Nicole was just as happy a person as she was. They both immediately responded with a resounding "Yes...yes..yes..."I snapped their picture.

You see the evidence of these two happy young people.

Thing is...


All week I'd be expecting "happiness" to show up.

As you can see from the pictures, Victoria's and Nicole's faces...and the beauty that I saw...
the mirage of happiness I saw...whenI first saw Victoria, cannot be witnessed by you, my reader, second hand. So, you've just got to believe me that "happiness" looked like "unutterable JOY" on Victoria's...then Nicole's... face.



The memory of the happiness these young women reflected will stay with me. Their faces, though, always will remain "in shadow..."

Isn't that so much like the happiness people seek?


Isn't that so much like the elusive search we
conduct year after year after year...

Looking for that elusive "something."..."SOME thing..."
"some thing..." Ahhh...if only.

When I came home that night, I put away the penny Victoria
had given me in a special place with my other "special goods."

At least I know that even if I can never see the face of
"happiness" clearly again...I'll always have the "evidence" that it
does truly exist.

I went to bed...so grateful.


As I drifted off to sleep...my last thoughts were ...
on the fact that each day as I stay in the moment...
in the peace of the moment...in the flow of the
moment...

I am happy.

I always am happy in the moment.

‎"We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures."
-Thornton Wilde

The only challenge remains to stay always and forever...
in that moment...

Where happiness always lives.

Just... stay in the moment...stay in the *F-L-O-W ...of what you seek.

Victoria and Nicole: Where ever you are at this moment, I know you're spreading your happiness. Thank you for sharing a moment in time with me and teaching me, in your youthful wisdom, the true meaning of happiness!


Namaste',

Che'
*NOTE: I strongly recommend reading "In the Flow of Life," by Eric Butterworth. This now-deceased "master" metaphysician authored hundreds of essays, articles and best-selling books that include, "Discover The Power Within You" and "Spiritual Economics." Butterworth also lead Sunday services at "Unity of New York," held at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.