As I listened to Jimmie Dale Gilmore's essay on NPR's This I Believe, I grew steadily more excited, hearing my own feelings on belief and happiness echoed quite precisely. If you flip through my past posts, you will see that this essay even speaks using some of the same terminology as I do. I recommend listening to his reading, but here are a few excerpts that I identified with, in particular:
"For some of us, it seems, experience is the only teacher. I had to learn the hard way...I went through a few years of just getting lost...The depression or the loneliness that is both the cause and the effect of the whole vicious circle. I went far enough down to have to either change or die. I basically managed to break my own heart.
Learning that I had no wisdom on my own finally opened the way for me to learn from those who did... What I once considered empty platitudes are actually descriptions of fact. I finally discovered the beautiful, paradoxical truth that genuine concern for the welfare of others is the gateway to the only real satisfaction for myself. I cannot claim to consistently live up to this ideal, but it is with genuine gratitude that I can say I have come to believe the words of the Indian philosopher-poet Shantideva:"
"All the joy the world contains / Has come through wishing happiness for others. / All the misery the world contains / Has come through wanting pleasure for oneself."