Create Happiness — You Won’t Regret it
But It Might Cost You!
Many times our viewpoint on life can change in an instant without us even realizing it has happened. Some pivotal experience will jolt us out of the blue and shift our entire perception of what really matters in life.
We find out that what we thought was important is not important at all, and what we thought did not matter, matters more than anything.
I had one such experience last September.
We eat our lunch in a cafeteria at the Nuclear power plant and when I went to the counter to pay for my food I was in a rush — carelessly stuffing the change in my pocket.
A ten dollar bill and some coins.
After lunch, we all hurried back to the job site and went back to work.
About three hours later one of our new employees, a young nineteen year old came running up to me with a huge smile on his face.
“Look what I found, Jake!”
“Look what I found!”
“Ten bucks!”
“It was just laying there, all crinkled up like someone shoved it into their pocket and it fell out!”
Yep, you guessed it.
It was my ten dollars.
Slipping a hand in my pocket confirmed it.
Just coins.
Jingling them around I cursed myself for the stupid mistake.
My instinct right away was to tell him it was mine and get it back.
Ten buck is ten bucks!
But wait….
Hold up a second Jake…
Something’s telling me not say a thing.
There’s an opportunity here….
The excitement he had.
The smile on his face.
I was getting more than ten dollars worth of entertainment by just seeing him happy. I found myself asking him questions about where he found it and telling him how lucky he was.
“If you can find ten dollars at a Nuclear Power Plant, you can find money anywhere!”, I exclaimed.
He went on, excitedly describing every detail of the find.
It was great!
He was as happy about that money as anyone could be about anything.
Once word got out, guys would come up and say, “Hey man, that’s my ten — where’d you find it?”
I, of coarse stuck close and would retaliate with, “Really?
“That’s your money?”
“I don’t think so, man.”
I had a ten dollar investment to protect here and I was getting too much enjoyment out of my own goof up to let anyone else interfere with it.
The boss finally showed up and after hearing the kid’s story, snatched the money from his hand and barked, “I’m gonna show this to everyone on the job site and ask them if they are missing ten dollars.”
“If nobody claims it, then I guess you can have it.”
There were a lot of workers on site that day.
Fifteen to twenty.
So the boss went around to each person while the kid followed him with his eyes, watching in suspense.
After the last man was interviewed, the boss reluctantly walked back and handed the ten dollars over to the lucky finder. That kid appreciated that ten dollars even more than when he first found it, and he felt twice as proud of himself to boot!
This is a true story and a true joy in life.
It really is.
To witness the happiness of another that you created yourself.
Right in front of you in the moment.
There is nothing like it, and once it happens — you want more of it!
You want it to happen again.
You will begin to look for ways to make people happy.
You will become addicted to it.
And to think, all it might possibly cost you is a paltry ten bucks.
NOTE: I discovered that day that what I thought was important ($10) is not important at all, and what I thought did not matter (Someone’s happiness), matters more than anything.
