In the Pursuit of Happiness – Look in Your Pocket!
– Chief Instructor Brett Wagland

Every one wants to be happy.  We spend billions of dollars on entertainment, holidays, gourmet meals, alcohol, drugs, etc., just so we can feel good.  If we examine our lives closely, we would agree that all those activities might give us transient pleasure, but not lasting happiness.  Some of these hedonistic indulgences also have a heavy price tag attached, making one’s life miserable and dysfunctional.  Nowadays, there is a tendency to confuse pleasure and conveniences with happiness.  For this reason, some of us become very annoyed when we believe that we are being inconvenienced, such as waiting at a red light, and when circumstances do not go our way.  We are looking outside for something that is on the inside.   No wonder this does not get us anywhere.

The old story of the thief and the jeweller aptly sums up our condition.  A notorious thief received information about a local jeweller who was about to purchase an expensive diamond in the market.  The thief staked out the location and waited patiently for the jeweller to arrive.  When he spotted the jeweller, he moved in close so he could see where the jeweller placed the precious gem.  The jeweller weaved through the marketplace and promptly boarded a train.  The thief was sure he knew where the diamond had been placed.  Try as he might, he could not find the stone.  Feeling sad and sorry, he confronted the jeweller and confessed his intention.  The jeweller said, “I was aware of your purpose when you began to follow me, so I put the stone in a safe place where you would never look.”  The thief begged, “Please tell me, sir, and I will be forever grateful.  I won’t steal the gem from you.  You have outsmarted me.”  The jeweller took the diamond from the thief’s pocket and said, “It has always been here, in your jacket pocket.”  In the pursuit of happiness, we unwittingly forget that the diamond is in our pocket, that the happiness we seek is within us.