Striving for Happiness Brings....Striving

My thought for Monday, from the observant, insightful and marvelous brain of Leo Rosten: "I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate. I think it is above all to matter, to count, to stand for something. To have it make some difference that you lived at all."*

Maybe I have had it all wrong.  Maybe Leo Rosten had it right.  The purpose of life is not necessarily to be happy.  The purpose is to be useful.  I am never happier than when I am useful.  When I am doing something for someone or some cause, I am happy.  Happiness comes  from being useful.  Uselessness is a terrible feeling.  How can you feel happy if there is no purpose for you?  I think this is what Oprah would call and "aha moment".  Aha!  This is why I volunteer.  This is why I offer to help. This is why I write this blog!  These are reasons to live, reasons to be alive, reasons to be happy!  

I still struggle some with this thought and with the other thought that things just are.  Life just is.  It is enough to "be".  The now is all we have.  So where does that leave happiness?  Where is the purpose?  Is the purpose just to be?  And in being, do we find happiness?  I would imagine the conclusion is, once again, somewhere in between.  It is often, I find, it balancing the need to be and the need to do.   It is somewhere between being appreciated and just being.

Monday mornings seem to bring out the philosopher in me as I get out of be and think about all the things I have to do as opposed to those which I want to do.  Choices abound.  And the first, getting out of bed, is the most important.  Lying in bed, letting life go by, well, that may be living in the "now" but is it living?

Happy Monday!

Leo Calvin Rosten (April 11, 1908 - February 19, 1997) was born in Łódź, Russian Empire (now Poland) and died in New York City. He was a teacher and academic, but is best known as a humorist in the fields of scriptwriting, storywriting, journalism and Yiddish lexicography.


*My Facebook friend, Karen B posted this as her status.  I have to say, it struck me right in the mind and in the heart!