The Pursuit of Happiness Begins with the Point of a Pencil

This speech was given at an interfaith talk on August 30th, 2008 at the Center for Spiritual Life in Dallas, TX. I was asked to represent the Baha'i Faith and give a talk on the pursuit of happiness.

I want everyone to take a look at this pencil, because this pencil represents something that makes me very happy. For some, like Mother Theresa, her pursuit of happiness was aiding lepers in India. How many here would take pleasure in giving up your life and going to Calcutta to work with lepers? For others, like Steven Spielberg, it was making entertaining movies with a message. For others, it might be like a typical mother and father, who finds happiness by rearing and providing for their children, like my mother and father. And for me, it's this pencil.

Now out of those four, who is the happiest?

Of course, there is no way to measure happiness. If there was, there is definitely no way to compare each other's level of happiness. What makes me happy may not make you happy. Only I can determine what makes me happy, no one can do that for me.

The pursuit of happiness begins with you.

We can help others pursue happiness. We can help most of the time just by getting out of the way, by removing obstacles. In America, we are known as a land where people are free to pursue their happiness. In this country, we don't have to worry about war affecting our livelihood. My place of business will most likely be there tomorrow. It won't be bombed out; electricity will be flowing to it; the chances of our building being appropriated by rebels for the "good of the people" are slim to none. When I go to my refrigerator, there will be plenty of food in it; if it's empty, then a grocery store one block away will be filled with all the food I could eat in a lifetime. When I am tired, I have a bed and for protection, all I have to do is lock my door.

Others don't have it like that.

It's really hard for most people to pursue happiness when they can't even get their minimal material needs met. Some materials needs must be met in order for a pursuit of happiness to begin. Sure, there are people who might be able to be happy even in the most dire conditions. One of the Baha'i Faith's central figures, Abdu'l-Baha, lived his whole adult life in prison with his father. He always talked about how he was happy even though outwardly he was suffering.

But I couldn't say the same for the people who put them there.

So how do we go about creating a world where people have enough to eat and drink, enough shelter and health care, without the threat of violence or other forms of coercion? The answer is this pencil. The answer to world peace and prosperity for all is for all you to go out there and make this pencil.

Take a look at this pencil. You have wood from trees in California. The trees were felled with saws made from metal dug from the ground somewhere else. That metal was formed into saws and shipped to the logging camp on trucks. There were people who built shelter for the lumberjacks, who made their meals and brewed their coffee. Once the tree is down, it's taken away using ropes, made from hemp imported from Canada. Someone had to grow the hemp, harvest it, turn it into rope and send it to the forests. The lead in the pencil is made from graphite mined from India, combined with paraffin from Mexico. The zinc used in the metal end of the pencil was perhaps mined from China or Australia. The eraser uses a little rubber used as a binding agent, but also sulphur chloride and pumice from Italy. The lacquer is made from castor bean oil, which also needed to be grown and harvested and needed technology to go from a bean to paint. If you use your imagination, you can see how millions and millions and millions of us had a hand in making this pencil. Not just this generation, but this pencil is the creation of all the generations of human beings that came before it.

And this is only this pencil. Imagine all the know-how and constituents that went into making these lights, this microphone, or the seats you're sitting on. Whatever you're doing, whatever your vocation is, you're drawing upon the collective output of the world at large. And when you create something or provide a service, you're contributing to the collective wealth of which all beings can partake.

The miner of zinc in Australia has no idea, not a clue that the mineral he digs up will be an ingredient for a pencil that an artist will use to sketch her masterpiece. The castor bean farmer in India has no idea, not a clue that the beans he grows will be an ingredient for a pencil that will be used by an architect who will design durable housing for the poor. The maker of paraffin wax in Mexico has no idea, not a clue that the product of his labors will be an ingredient for a pencil that will be used by a child to write his name for the first time.

The truth is, we don't know who the end user of our labor will be or what it will be used for, but nevertheless, it must be done to the best of our ability. Because when we perform our work in the spirit of service, it becomes a form of worship, because no doubt the fruits of our labor aid humanity in ways in which we can't imagine.

And that is what makes me happy; having a hand in making this pencil. My advice is to go out there and act as if the whole world benefits from your service. Call it tangible karma.

Though I believe our lot in life is to till the land as it says in the holy scriptures, work isn't the only way I pursue happiness. After work I like to have a nice bowl of soup. Maybe you've heard of Tom Kha soup. It's a Thai dish made with coconut milk, fresh vegetables, herbs, and it's quite delicious -- makes you wonder if the the person who picked that coconut knew that one day it would be used to make a bowl of Tom Kha soup in Dallas, Texas. After having a bowl, I'm happy. But if you gave me another and said, "please, enjoy another," it wouldn't make me as happy. And continuing, if that's the only meal I could have, in a very short while I'll be a lot less happy. So based on that, I can say that my pursuit of happiness goes beyond having a bowl of coconut soup.

I also play the Cajon drum, it's a Peruvian instrument. I am an artist, a writer, and I sell teddy bears, I'm a volunteer in Big Brothers and Big Sisters. And there's enough variety to where I don't feel bored, and you could say that I'm happy. However, if I lived to be 1,000 years old, even this assortment of activities will cease to make me happy. So what is the one thing that we can do every day for eternity that would bring us everlasting happiness?

I would have to say it's my relationship with God. It is the only thing I truly can say I own. That is the only thing I'll take away with me when I leave this material world. You never see a U-Hall following a hearse. And so ultimately, whatever I do, is based on my relationship with God. If I did not have God in my life, I wouldn't have the foundation, the guidance and inspiration to live a life of service. To dedicate myself to God means I've chosen to pursue eternal happiness over temporal happiness. There are people, who are rich enough to go from one temporal pursuit to another, for their whole lives, and they think they are happy. That happiness in an illusion. Jesus said it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. The pursuit of happiness requires tests, and suffering.

Take this gold coin. It is 99.999 percent pure. But how did it start? As a huge chunk of rock. It took large machines to loosen the rock's attachment to the earth. Then more machines had to hammer down the rock. And next came the fire, lots of it, to remove the impurities, so that after quite a period of refinement, there is nothing left but pure gold. This gold coin is in a protective case. If I were to take it out, it would be very soft. You could twist it like a corkscrew, pound it flat as a piece of paper, pull it into thin wires. But still, the gold will remain resilient and be luminous. Just as we test gold with fire, our spirits are tested with the fire of God's tests. For the hotter it gets, the more pure our spirit becomes. And that is God's ultimate goal for us: to beat away the dross of material existence and earthly attachments so that our pure, unadulterated soul is made manifest.

So in our pursuit of happiness, there are two kinds: the material pursuit, like making this pencil. And the spiritual pursuit, like the making of this gold.

When the two work together, when we all approach our work with a spirit of service and when we pray for tests that purify our souls, the end result is that we upraise the standard of humanity and illuminate the whole earth.