Week 5 Story: Happiness and Sid

Log Cabin from Pixabay

Once Upon a time there was a man named Sid. Sid grew up dreaming of paradise, of incredible riches and lavish things. His family was well off, but not the level of wealth he aspired to reach. He was a handsome young man, and often made people stop in the streets to admire his good looks. 

Sid was also incredibly smart. He never struggled in school and was every teacher's dream student. He was loved by his parents and had many many friends, along with his pick of the ladies. Sid went to the most prestigious college in the country and got an equally prestigious internship. As Sid graduated college, he received a job offer to where he would be making over one million dollars a year at the ripe old age of 22.  

His first year at his job he worked incredibly hard, and secured a substantial bonus for good work performance as well as a raise that was nothing to scoff at. He bought a mansion at 23, and paid for it all in cash that he had already earned. He lived the very lavish lifestyle he always dreamed of as a kid. He bought a brand new sports car, and filled up his closet with more expensive and stylish clothes than most people would ever own in their entire life. He worked hard and partied even harder. 

Slowly, Sid's lifestyle started to catch up to him. He didn't have energy to party anymore, and he felt physically gross because he worked so hard that his health was one of his lowest priorities. He was rapidly gaining weight, and the normal lusty looks he got from girls started to turn into looks of pity. He also started to develop extreme anxiety and paranoia. Sid was constantly worried about someone scratching his fancy car, or getting robbed of his fancy watch, or his fancy house getting destroyed. 

Finally, one day Sid had had enough with the desire that consumed him. He knew he needed a break, so he packed up and went to his grandfather's old hunting lodge up in the mountains of Colorado. It was a very rustic and simple old lodge. It was just one big room, smaller than Sid's master closet at home. It didn't have electricity but it had running water, a fireplace, and an old stove to cook at. Sid walked in and immediately felt such a deep peace from within. He stayed for a week, and not once did he feel a twinge of anxiety or guilt from not working. 

On one of the days, Sid had hiked up one of the near by mountains. As he reached the top, he looked out over the land around him, and he had an epiphany. Everything around him was so simple, no one lived with any luxuries or excess, but people were happy. They didn't have worries. He could tell they were healthy and at peace with themselves and who they were. THAT became his new aspiration. He realized that even though he had everything he had ever wanted, it had only made him more miserable in life. He had no substance on the inside, he was so busy thinking about his possessions he never stopped to think about himself. He didn't know who he was besides "rich". 

From that pivotal day forward, Sid was a new man. He quit his job and sold everything he owned. The money he had saved and the money he got from selling everything was more than enough for him to live the life he wanted for the rest of his days. He moved into his grandfather's cabin and spent his days deep in thought and meditation. He fished in the river and hunted in the forest. He only had enough clothes for two weeks, and just one pair of worn out hiking boots. Sid got back in shape, and finally started to feel a deep satisfaction that can only come from within. 

He didn't have any worries, he didn't constantly feel exhausted from the weight he put onto his own shoulders. He felt vibrant and alive. He realized that Baloo from The Jungle Book had the right idea, to 

"Look for the bare necessities

The simple bare necessities

Forget about your worries and your strife

I mean the bare necessities

Old Mother Nature's recipes

That brings the bare necessities of life"

(Lyrics from "The Bear Necessities" by Tony Bennett link)

He had everything he needed, and nothing more. 

One day an old friend of his came to visit, and tried to persuade him to come back to his old, lavish ways. Sid shared with his friend everything he had come to realize, and his friend realized that Sid really was right. He left him alone, to live his peaceful and simple life, but made Sid promise if he ever truly understood the key to happiness, to come back home and teach it to him. 

Sid continued on with his daily routine of introspection and mediatation, and each and every day realized more and more that money will never by happiness, and that happiness only truly comes from within. 

Authors Note: 

I based this week's story off of the story of Siddartha, from The Life of Buddha section. Siddhartha was a handsome young man who lived a life very similar to the life Sid is leading by the end of my story. Siddhartha was known to be incredibly radiant and people often mistook him for a god. One day a King came to him and offered him all the riches and land Siddhartha could imagine, but he politely declined, saying that desire is poisonous, and he is seeking the "true law" instead. Basically his message was what inspired me this week, that your desires will never be truly fulfilled and that fancy things will not make you happy. 

I kept a lot of the overall message the same for my story, but again just changed up the details. In my rendition I wanted to focus more on how Siddhartha got to that point of enlightenment, so I made up my own rendition of how that might have occurred. I also almost immediately thought of my own life, and how creating a more minimalistic lifestyle for myself has helped me decrease my own levels of anxiety. I do not live to the extreme that Sid does that is for sure, but I have seen the benefits of focusing less on things and more on yourself in my own personal life. I hope this story can resonate with some of you too. 

Bibliography: 

Life of Buddha: Siddhartha and King Vimbasara from The Life of Buddha by Andre Ferdinand Herold