It's taken me years to realize that I have this "pursuit of happiness" thing backwards. In fact, I suspect happiness isn't something you can "pursue" at all.

We spend much of our lives chasing after it. We work long hours and sacrifice countless moments with family, friends, and who knows what else. We tell ourselves that it's worth it, that we will enjoy the fruits of our labor down the road. We overload the present with stress in service of some fuzzy concept of future satisfaction. We convince ourselves that "paying dues" now will pay off later.

That one day we'll have the time to enjoy it all -- and then, we will be happy.

(The idea that we'll somehow have more time in the future is wrong, of course. It is widely held, and perhaps seems more credible for being commonplace, but is incorrect nonetheless. The 24 hours we have today -- and had yesterday, and will have tomorrow -- are all we get.)

I suspect that happiness is to be found not by pursing some vague future but by sitting still and finding contentment in the present. In a sense, I suppose it's less about chasing happiness than letting it catch up. To see joy in today instead of racing towards tomorrow.

Paraphrasing Viktor Frankl: Happiness is something that ensues, rather than something to pursue.

Happiness happens, when we let it.

"Anybody can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple." - Charles Mingus

It occurred to me recently: Somewhere along the way, I've started acting as if complexity conveys cleverness -- that is, the longer and more jargon- and acronym-filled my words, the smarter I must be.

That isn't true, of course. Even worse, it misses the point of communicating. No longer am I helping to make meaning for the listener; instead, I'm just trying to make myself look good.

Clarity is a virtue. Simplicity and brevity, too, if they get the point across. If my purpose is to inform and not to impress, then flowery rhetoric should take backseat to plain speech.

It makes sense. Now, if only my ego would agree...

"There is always a way -- if I'm as much of an expert as I think I am -- to forge a path for anyone to follow into a subject or skill. If I can't make that path, I don't understand my topic as much as my ego thinks I do." - Scott Berkun, Confessions of a Public Speaker

I got a question from someone the other day asking for a summary of the link I posted to Waldfogel's paper on deadweight loss and the holidays (PDF). If you haven't read the paper, it's well worth your time; if you're looking for the somewhat simpler, more TLDR-er version, though, here you go.

Most of the time, you know what you want better than I do. Assuming that's the case, you'd get more value from my giving you a $20 bill (which you could spend however you like) than from a $20-priced t-shirt that I thought was funny, but which you value at far less than $20. That mismatch-y difference is what economists refer to as deadweight loss. 

There is a situation where this doesn't apply, though.

Consider a gift that falls outside your realm of knowledge -- say, a book or album from an author or band you've never heard of, or a meal at a restaurant you've never been to. You wouldn't have thought to spend that $20 bill on those things because you weren't aware of them; what's more, they might introduce you to a new genre/cuisine that you love, opening up future experiences worth far more than the gift's initial $20 sticker price.

In other words, you know what you like and dislike, but there are plenty of things you haven't yet discovered (what economists refer to as imperfect information). Of course, a gift that falls into that undiscovered space is a bit of a gamble -- will it be something you love, or next year's white elephant candidate?

The moral of the story: From an efficiency perspective, cash is king unless you can deliver that eye-opener of a gift. So be bold! (Or find a nice card to class up that Jackson.)

My dad used to tell us that a life well-lived is divided into three acts, casting us progressively into the roles of student, doer, and teacher. We receive the knowledge of past generations, refract and refine it through our own experiences, then pass it on to the next generation, combined with our own insights.

In essence: We learn, live, and then leave whatever wisdom we have to those who come after.

Every year I give some thought to where I fall in those three acts. They aren't mutually exclusive roles, of course; this year, however, I'd cast myself almost entirely as the second (doer). I don't feel like I'm actively learning much, so I'm a little deficient there. And while I do miss the preaching-and-teaching elements of pastoral work sometimes, I was never very comfortable in the teacher role. So right now, I'm not doing much there.

In the coming year, I'd like to refocus on the learning side of things. A bit of envy over my dad's March trip to Peru has rekindled my interest in languages, so I'll be dusting off my Spanish again (courtesy of Mango, my Christmas present from Kelli). And I'm hoping Kel's interest in school will prove contagious.

So: Learning, living, leaving. Where are you at?

Earlier today, I made a paper airplane for the first time in probably 10+ years. It was at the request of Kelli's little cousin, who then spent a good chunk of the day hurling it around our living room. It reminded me of fun times spent doing exactly the same thing when I was a kid.

As we get ready to unwrap those Christmas presents, I thought this was a nice reminder that gifts need not be shiny, expensive, or even properly aerodynamic (I'm a bit out of practice) to delight and uplift. Even a simple sheet of paper can do the trick, with a bit of TLC.

Happy holidays to you and yours! May your Christmas be filled with good food and great fellowship -- and a paper airplane or two of your own.