Reaching For Peace.

As the Juba Peace Talks complete themselves and the peace agreement is waiting to be officially signed (despite mysterious postponements by the LRA), I ponder peace and happiness.

I've often reached for happiness in many different ways, my first addiction in books. Then came music, TV, friends, partying, etc. But after I learned happiness is more mercurial than that, I began to search for it in other people, in my career, in life circumstances. If only I had that perfect job, or that perfect dog, or that perfect house, or that perfect baby.

But now I feel as if I'm progressing to a new level of understanding of happiness. Real happiness at least, not just the immediate gratification pleasure happiness that our culture is so addicted to now-a-days. Happiness is that funny and kind note from a friend. Happiness is finishing a good book having learned something about yourself and life (I guess I kept that one from childhood). Happiness is a comfortable silence with a loved one. Happiness is learning something new. In short, happiness is a myriad of things bound together by one force... me. It isn't one Ultimate thing, but a million little things that make me happy. Maybe I'll never write that perfect novel, perhaps I'll never find that perfect job, but that doesn't mean I can't be happy and it doesn't mean that I failed in any way. This is perhaps one of the harder things for my overly ambitious mind to accept.

What is happiness to you?