Happiness is a Warm Gun.....Unlikely Life Lessons

Sometimes you find inspiration in the strangest places. Today I found mine in an episode of One Tree Hill. One Tree Hill is something that I caught on to a little late. I actually didn’t start watching until it came back for its fifth season. This season began four years in the future after the characters had graduated high school and were young twenty-somethings trying to figure out what to do with their lives. It resonated with me because at the time I was doing the same thing. I was trying to find my place in the world and figure it all out and in many regards still am and here came this cheesy post high school drama that was going through it all with me. Granted the characters were much more glamorous, they’re dreams were slightly unrealistic, and definitely more attainable through clever writing but it still resonated. The drama was quite over the top but underneath it was a show about a bunch of friends following different paths trying to do something with their lives and make sense of it all.

This show was a weekly oasis and guilty pleasure all wrapped up in genetically blessed packaging. Luckily a little channel called SoapNet has One Tree Hill marathons on the weekends so that I can catch up on the lives of these fictional characters before they were confused twenty-somethings. Tonight while catching up on missed episodes of season eight online, I was really struck by something one of the new main characters said. He said “Happiness is a mood, not a destination” and this really struck me. I had never really looked at life this way before. The thought that happiness isn’t something that we should work toward, but a mood and emotion just like any other that comes and goes in waves. I know sometimes we work hard toward this idea of happiness, that if we just do the right things in a certain order that this overwhelming thing called happiness will arrive and then all will be perfect. After today I really will try to appreciate happiness for what it is, an emotion that should be savored when it comes and not looked upon with regret when it leaves. All emotions are valid even the ones that are hard to deal with or less than flattering.

One emotion that I will not feel for really loving this show is shame. ;) Sometimes life lessons come in the least likely of places, like in an episode of One Tree Hill and you have to just go with it and take it these small gifts when they come.

One Tree Hill "Happiness is a mood, not a destination"