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Rainy Days and Sunshine
A work of fiction by patch monkey
http://www.patchmonkey.net
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He smiled as he looked at her. "Well, that's the problem, isn't it? No
one really knows what they want, do they? On the floors of Tokyo or in
London town too - no matter what the record selection, they don't know
what they want?"
"But all I wanted was to be happy, to not have to worry about the
mirrored reflection. It feels like I'm always dancing with myself," she
said sadly, staring into the cup of tea.
"Well, maybe you are, young lady."
She stiffened. "Please, please don't call me that."
"What, then, should I call you? Should I call you what you call yourself
at night, when you think there's no one else in sight? You've been
waiting too long for love's vibration, the feeling that you're not
dancing alone anymore, right?"
"I suppose," she sighed. "There's nothing to really lose anymore,
nothing to prove. I've won my love, but I think that if I looked all
over the world, no matter any kind of girl, I'd still come back here,
and her empty eyes would pass me by."
The man pulled a bottle of Calpis soda out. "Have you ever mixed this
with sake? I think it's time we sink another drink - it'll give us some
more time to think. Maybe the problem isn't that you're dancing alone -
it's that you haven't taken the chance to ask the world to dance with
you. You keep performing, yet you never take the chance to ask the world
to join you. Maybe you should, someday."
"Y'think? You think I should take that chance?"
"I know you should," he answered.
"Then I will," she replied as she pushed her chair back and stood. "Hey,
thanks buddy."
"No problem. I used to have the same problem myself, when I was young. I
didn't realize it until too late - too late for the girl I loved, and
too late for those people who used to be my friends."
"What finally happened? What made you realize it?"
He took a sip of the mixture, and grimaced. "Perfect. I heard a song on
the radio, and suddenly, I knew. I knew what I had done wrong for nearly
eighteen years. I learned, right then, that life wasn't only proving
you're the best. I was successful, I was reaching my goal of success -
but what was life going to be after that? I was eighteen, the best in
the world, and I suddenly knew it was downhill from there. Once you're
the best, you're finished."
"So? You're done - you don't have to worry anymore."
"Yeah, that's what most people think. Look at it like this, okay? A
thirteen year old girl is competing in the Olympics for gymnastics, and
she wins the gold. That's it. That's the end of her life, right there.
She's never going to get any better than the best - the rest of her life
is downhill."
The girl looked aghast. "But...she just won the gold."
"Bingo. She's reached her goal of being successful, and, from that
point, she can't get any higher. I learned that, and I was lucky - I'll
talk to business folks nowadays, and some of them are just learning it.
Never set your goal to be success - you'll always reach it, but you'll
never be happy. Your ultimate goal is to be happy - happy in religion,
happy at work, happy at play, just be happy."
"Huh?"
"Think of it this way, okay? Why do you study martial arts?"
"I like to protect myself, and I want to teach it one day."
"And why do you want to do that?"
"Because I want to help other people."
"And why do you want to do that?"
"Because that's what makes me happy. Oh. Oh!"
The man chuckled. "See? Being happy is the important thing, well, not
happy at others expense, that isn't really happiness. But you get it?"
"I think so. Being happy is the important thing, so I should shoot for
that."
"Right on the money."
The girl furrowed her brow a bit, and looked straight at the man. "Can I
ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"What were you doing before you started doing this?"
"Hmm...well, I was a lot like you, I suppose. I wanted the same thing
you do - and I was dancing with myself too," he remarked, glancing at
his wristwatch. "5:00, you should be heading home."
"I guess. I have some thinking to do."
"Good for you. Let me know how it all works out! Oh, tell your parents I
said 'hi'."
"Sure thing. Later, Dr. S."
"So long!"
He turned to watch the girl as she jumped over the fence separating his
house from the street. "I hope she gets it. I really do," he sighed,
downing the last of the Calpis and sake mixture.
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*Notes*
A lot of this is really good advice, based off a lecture I'm working on.
A lot of people are miserable because they think that happiness is an
aspect of success, one that they don't really need, one that they can
always work on later. It's not - more successful people are unhappy than
anything else. Make being happy your ultimate goal, you'll find you're
going to live a longer, fuller, more peaceful, more successful life.
Make success your goal, and you'll be successful, but you'll never truly
know it.
Never let success get in the way of happiness. Always let happiness get
in the way of success.
... Jerry Levine ................. www.patchmonkey.net [personal]
... jerry@onimedia.net ........... www.onimedia.net [media]
... jlevine@umd.edu .............. www.drunkenlargo.com [offline]
... patchmonkey@patchmonkey.net .. www.gaijeans.com [high fashion]
........."He who knows he has enough is rich." - Tao Te Ching..........
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