Neel and I were at lunch talking about Websites and how they can be updated. He’s our “IT guy” at CDH, but he is also a multi-talented person and does work across all disciplines at the firm. As we talked I showed him how easy it was for me to make a post on CocoaSmiles. Then I remembered a photo I had taken of a young calf four years ago. “See,” I said, “just a couple of clicks and it’s posted.” I stopped and looked at him.
“Neel, can I show you happy?”
“Sure,” he said. He’s from Kenya and knows all about open spaces, savannahs, and being up close and personal to wild things. So I wasn’t a bit afraid to show him the above photo.
“This is happy,” I said as I turned the laptop around. Suddenly, I could feel the emotion of that summer evening when I took this photo welling up inside of me, and I also remembered the thoughts that ran through my head. It was the words of C. S. Lewis, who after experiencing unspeakable joy said: “I don’t want to be somewhere else anymore. I’m here now, and it’s enough.”
Neel looked at the photo and was quiet for a moment. Then came this comment: “That is the most important thing you have said this entire time—happy.”
Happy, content, at peace without a care given to returning to the race that I now find myself in again. Sometimes, things turn out differently than we plan. Sometimes they don’t turn out at all. Sometimes they become memories that we cherish; and with time, perhaps, they will be places we can revisit.
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