Cause that happens sometimes. It’s weird. We’re usually tore up with anxiety and imposter syndrome and worry, and then, all of a sudden, everything snaps into place, and you’re good. Is it happiness? Maybe. But how would we know?
Happiness is fleeting.
But the things that lay a foundation for happiness aren’t. Maybe this is what’s happening to you right now. You’ve been working on laying the bricks for a solid base, and you got the last one in. Now you have all the things you need to be happy.
Maslow would be proud.
Look at you now, standing arms akimbo on top of the first two levels of the Hierarchy of Needs. This is what you’re feeling. It’s not so much happiness as safety. Permanence. Establishment. Your career, your relationships, your home, your finances, your friends—hell, even your dog is fine, lying there on the couch snoring away because your life, your base, is stable, and he knows it.
Of course, it could all go fucking sideways.
The world is wobbly, and though I believe it is a determinate, clockwork universe, I also believe it is exceedingly complex. Complex enough that the cause of an effect may be so far afield you can’t see it. Things seem to happen randomly. But here’s the thing, While we while away our woes in this vail of wah, we wear a groove into the real. Maybe it’ll all explode sometime around three o’clock next Tuesday, and you’ll be left standing there knocking fire off your denim with not much more than your hat in your hands and a grin.
Because even when the house burns down, the foundation remains.
To tax this metaphor further: sure, you may have to kick some smoldering timbers out of the way, and that PVC installation is just a melted glob of plastic slag, but you’re not starting from scratch. You’ve been here. You’ve already done this. You built the building that burned down. Hell, having a foundation is 50% of the job. Everybody relax. You got this.
Except that’s not what’s happening because, well, nothing has burned down.
It probably won’t. Such calamity is rare. The thing is the world, though it may seem to be in constant change, actually prefers things to stay on track. It likes the needle in the groove. If reality were an old man, it would start every sentence with “Back in My Day” and drive a 1997 Buick Skylark because it’s a solid vehicle, son. Once you put something down into the world with enough force, it tends to stick.
So this feeling that everything is fine . . . is fine.
It’s real. It’s a reward. You earned it. You still gotta put in the work to keep things rolling, but God willing, and the creeks don’t rise, you’re looking at a steady future. You feel fine because you are.
What whiskey should you drink when you’re good?
Hell, Eugene, I don’t know. I’m not your dad. But I’m having a snoot full of Peerless Rye and pulling my hat down over my eyes and listening to the crickets do their thing.
