The Key to Happiness

There is one question every child in this and many other countries is asked: What do you want to be when you grow up? Many of us are asked this question more than once. I can remember the first time I was asked this question by my kindergarten teacher. My response was immediate, certain, and emphatic: I want to be an astronaut.

My other classmates were just as sure of their fantasies as they replied that they wanted to be doctors, police officers, firemen, actresses, or rock stars. In that time of naïve innocence, all of us think about becoming what we may dream of without any regard to all of the other things that life entails or how hard we must work to make these fantasies come to life. Our equation was simple: We simply wanted and expected to become our fantasy.

As we grew older and gained a more firm grasp on who we thought ourselves to be and experienced more of this thing called life, our fantasy lives changed to things more practical and we began to take steps in the direction needed to make the fantasy real. By fifth grade, I wanted to become a teacher. I liked the idea of being able to share my knowledge and wisdom with others in a way that would help them. Though the desire to be a teacher was more firm than my earlier desire to go to space, my dream of becoming a teacher lacked one important thing. It lacked the knowledge of what life is really about, and anticipation of all the obstacles that would come between me and my dream. Nevertheless I never lost sight of the dream as I entered puberty and then high school.

Then life as I knew it fell apart and I began my cycle of self-destruction.

Unless I am able to find some legal loophole, my attempted homicide conviction has put an end to my dream of becoming a teacher. I still want to teach, and am in fact a teacher in prison. I once held an institutional work assignment tutoring students for their GED, and I recently held a job tutoring the international Computer Driver’s License class here in my facility. Now I unofficially tutor individuals willing to pay for instruction on obtaining their GED, adult basic education, building maintenance, automobile repair, HVAC-R, music theory, guitar playing, and bass guitar playing. Though I enjoy doing it, my dream of teaching is far different from the tutoring I actually do.

Since coming to prison, I have had many different dreams for my life once I am released. Being in prison, there is a lot of time to think about things like that if you care to. I was going to own a large-scale building maintenance company, contracting to do industrial and commercial business. I was going to become a studio musician, able to play all modern rock music instruments. I was going to be a landscape architect, designing real estate subdivisions. I was going to make money in the stock market. I was going to build custom cars and motorcycles. I was going to be a tattoo artist, and I was going to write fantasy novels for a living.

Every dream was career-oriented. There was little room for anything else that one dreams about in life until after I made one of those dreams real. Over the years, I have taken every available step to gain enough knowledge in each area that I have mentioned to make any one of those dreams a realistic possibility, dependent on the opportunities that may present themselves to me at a particular time.

Real life, however, was still an afterthought, and given little weight in my pursuit to eventually live a successful life.

Everybody experiences dreams of success during their early adult lives. For most of these people, securing their dream career is their number one priority. But once the dreamer experiences a little financial independence, life somehow gets in the way and he often falls victim to just going with the flow. Falling in love, having children, the cost of living, and a host of other things quickly push us in different directions and change our dreams and priorities. We realize we may still have success in life, but we find that what makes us successful is not what we originally set out to accomplish.

What makes for a successful life? I have come to realize that the answer to that question is really simple. Life is successful if when you are in your final years you are satisfied with everything you have done to the point that it brings you happiness. If when you die, you die with a smile on your face, you have lead a successful life.

Life is about finding happiness. Amazingly, it was a man who will never have a chance to realize his dreams that revealed it to me. Over the course of four years we had many conversations about life and it was the fact that he was well on his way to happiness before a bad decision ruined it that showed me the importance of what life is about.

Most people in prison never think about their childhood dreams, nor do they ever realize or even care to know about what life is really about. They are true sociopaths, showing concern only for themselves, living in the moment, acting on impulse, seeking instant gratification, and have no concern for anything beyond the NOW. They do not think too far ahead in life and do not care about the consequences of their actions.

Some even consider coming to prison a small price they have to pay for the life they lead outside of prison. They define success in terms of money, fame, or social status. They care only for the things they have in their possession right now, and if something like a child comes into their life, it is considered a burden because it gets in the way of what they really want.

Ironically, it is the people who will never leave the confines of prison that have a true grasp on this reality. Over time they realize what they have thrown away and attempt to find a way to seek happiness in their situation, and to give the life they now have real meaning. They pursue religion, education, charity, and they try to help people like me find the right path. They seek to do anything and everything that may bring them a sense of accomplishment and joy.

Today, I find I can relate to them better than the other inmates, the ones just passing through, and I hold myself apart from the far majority of inmates, because, as obnoxious as this may sound, I do consider myself to be different from and better than them.

Once again, my dreams have changed. I am no longer so focused on the career aspect of my life. I do think about it and have an idea of what I would like to spend my life doing in order to support myself, but it no longer holds too much importance in the grand scheme of things. I no longer care about how much money I make, as long as it is enough to get by without a struggle. I don’t think about finding or building a dream home or fancy car. I do have a strong desire to help troubled teens, as I once was, before they end up in same situation that I have, fighting to find a way to live my dreams.

All of that, however, is secondary to me. If I can make any or all of that happen in my life it will be a bonus. My ultimate happiness will be found in being a loving husband and father, devoted to making the dreams of my wife and children come true. I want to be able to provide for the needs of my family and experience the love and the wonder, the good and the bad, the easy and the hard, all of the aspects of family life.

No candle can shine next to that. If I can make that dream a reality, I will die a happy man.

The next time someone asks me what I want to be in life my response will be as immediate, as certain, and said with more emphasis and enthusiasm than it was when I was in kindergarten: I want to be a family man, nothing more, and nothing less.