Celebrated Brazilian author, Paulo Coelho, tells an intriguing story of a fisherman and a businessman. The businessman was sitting by a beach when he saw a fisherman rowing a small boat to the shore, with a good catch of fish. “How long did it take you to catch so many fish?” asked the business man. “Oh, just a short while.” “Then why don’t you stay longer and catch more?” “This is enough to feed my family.” “And what do you do for the rest of the day?” “Well, I usually wake up early in the morning and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon I take a nap with my wife and in the evening I join my buddies in the village for a drink. We play the guitar and sing and dance throughout the night.”
“I have a PhD in business management,” said the businessman. I could help you become a more successful person. You should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for canned food and a distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village to Sao Paulo, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches.” “And after that?” asked the fisherman.
“After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares on the Stock Exchange, and you will be rich.” “And after that?” “After that, you can finally retire and move to a house by the fishing village, wake up early in the morning, catch a few fish, then return home to play with kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar, sing and dance throughout the night!” The fisherman was puzzled. “Isn’t that what I am doing now?”
The lessons of this story cry out to be learned as we start the year 2020. One of those lessons is that happiness in 2020 will not come from reaching a certain destination or achieving certain objectives. Happiness will come from the way we react to the circumstances in which we find ourselves and the everyday experiences that we encounter. Alfred Souza discovered this truth for himself. Each time he thought that he was about to reach the place where life was going to blossom for him, he experienced certain setbacks and the happiness that seemed to be in his grasp eluded him. This led him to write, “Happiness is a journey, not a destination. For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time to be served, a debt to be paid. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”
What a profound discovery! It is a discovery that we all need to make in 2020 if we have not yet made it. Real life is in the elation and the disappointments, the opportunities and the obstacles, the ups and the downs that we experience each day. Our fulfilment and happiness derive from how we react to them.
Do you have a number of goals in mind that are intended to bring you happiness in 2020? – Getting Married? Landing that Dream Job? Getting that nagging illness cured? Getting the keys to your dream house?
Experience has proven that happiness does not come from achieving a goal or from reaching a destination. Happiness can be found exactly where you are, whether married or unmarried, whether in a job or jobless, whether healthy or sick, whether living in one room or in a mansion, whether you have much money in the bank or none at all, and whether you have lost weight or gained weight.
Long before Alfred Souza, the Apostle Paul realized that contentment, a synonym for happiness, could be experienced each day and in every circumstance. Consequently, he wrote in Phil. 4, “I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
May the power of Christ strengthen you, so that you can experience happiness or contentment in every situation in 2020, knowing that your life is in the hand of our heavenly Father.