The Long Walk to Happiness

She had told him excitedly, once, that when She had finally found him, She had finally found her Happiness.

At first, this brought him great Happiness. But, as each day passed with Her, he realized that there were more and more Days where She seemed to misplace or lose sight of her Happiness. And, try as he might, He couldn't always find it for her.

And, years later, there came a Day when She had to call him and tell him that She had simply lost her Happiness. All She remembered was that She had woken from a dream many mornings ago and that their Happiness was gone. And, after many days of crying and searching and searching and crying- Happiness was just not to be found.

"Oh, Beautiful, it's right Here," He said to her. He pulled out his iPhone, launched Google Maps and pointed to where He was.

Then, after a very long and very painful silence, She said that She was quite sure that Happiness wasn't there, in Kansas, anymore. In fact, She was quite sure that even with all His gadgets and GoogleAppleSony Magic, there was no way for their Happiness to be found, again. And worse: She wasn't sure, anymore, that She wanted their Happiness to be found.

It, then, occurred to Him that when Happiness comes, it rushes in with open arms and an unquenchable thirst - as if it had been stumbling for days and weeks.. wandering through forests, plains, and mountains... alone and starved. But, when Happiness leaves... Happiness walks very, very slowly... looks back over its shoulder over and over again, and walks for a very, very long time. At some point, He, too, had just lost sight of Happiness - and had just assumed it was still nearby, safely just out of sight.

Thinking back, now, He remembered Happiness getting a little further and further away each day - but there was so much to do in Life, so many Things to do. He just thought that He could always catch up to Happiness later...

But, She told him that He was simply too far away, now and that their Happiness was too far gone for far too long. She needed a new Happiness that She could hold each day, near her cottage on an ocean thousands of miles away. And, because He loved her, He wanted Her to have that, too.

It was then that He realized that, while they each had, indeed, lost sight of their Happiness, what They had really just lost was their Hope. It was at that very moment that he also learned that GoogleAppleSony Magic can help you find Things, but only Hope can help you find Happiness. Without Hope, None of Us can find Happiness - our own or someone else's.

So, he reached, deeply, into his emptied pockets and found all that He had left: a place for his Hope and a place for his Happiness. And He realized that, thousands of miles away, in a far away land, there was Someone with the same empty pockets. He said a Prayer for them both - that they both might find Hope... and Happiness, again.

And he looked for miles and miles around him into an unfamiliar Nothingness, and simply took one step forward - towards a Happiness he could not, yet, see. He didn't know how long he could walk for, each day. He didn't know where He was walking to. All He knew, Now, was that It was a very, very long walk to Happiness.