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Sunday, September 27, 2015

Ryan.


Sitting across from Ryan in Starbucks last month was a crazy, almost remarkable experience. Ryan has been my manager for the entire time I've been at Chick-fil-A. I started out there having a small respect-crush on Ryan. You know those weird crushes? They're not romantic. They're just like, "I wanna be you. Teach me your ways senpai."

But it took me two months until I basically detested working with Ryan. He just had perfect hair. Perfect smile. Perfect face. Perfect personality. He overshadowed me and I thought he wanted me to be more like him. Ryan said lots of things to me, but I always felt like I heard "git guhd." I thought I would be happy whenever the time came for Ryan to quit. And yet Ryan stuck around.

The rumor was December. Then spring. Chick-fil-A tabloids were buzzing with conjectures on the departure of our senior manager. And while the months passed, I kind of realized that the date when Ryan would leave was inevitably closer. I quite wanted to like him. I really wanted to see him as a human being, and not a rigid, smiling conglomeration of Monster, hair gel, impeccable customer service, and endless energy.

And when I started looking for reasons to appreciate Ryan, I confronted the realization that his leaving wouldn't make me happy. It didn't. He quit mid-August; we organized a small pizza and ice cream party at midnight one night. I wrote him a letter, emotionally confessing my selfishness in equating his presence with my unhappiness. Thanking him for being the uncle/big-brother figure he had been for all of us, despite our (my) obstinate personality barriers.

Sam and I had the chance to have coffee with him that week too. I loved that. Outside of work, Ryan was even more of a friend than a mentor figure. He wasn't doped up on four Monsters. He wasn't in a button-up and tie. He didn't have a clipboard and pen in front of him. He didn't have eleven employees and young women and angry customers all clamoring for his attention. He was human, in jeans and sharing his dreams, heartaches, wistful hopes.

Ryan told us all about his future plans, heard ours', and then we tossed around ideas. Ryan glowed with anticipation of the next steps in his life. Camping on the beach, living in NYC, starting a graphic design business, finding a wife, pursuing everything he loves and has been called to do. His smile was infectious. Wonder and joy flickered across his face as frequently as every blink. It was contagious.

Whenever you see something that's changing someone's life, you have to ask yourself how it could change yours'.

And today I asked myself what more I needed to be happy. I moved out; and having all that adult freedom has not made me happy. I looked at my budgeting app and saw the record of all the things I’ve bought this year that I thought would make me happier. Not consciously, but sometimes we buy things and are like "Yeah. This thing will render a new and improved me." I guess I think that whenever I depart from Trader Joe's with four or five bags of sheer joy. But I don't know. Sometimes I still sit in my room and listen to quiet music and feel meh. Sipping my Trader Joe's incredible chai, no doubt, but even things that make life better don't make it happy.

Yeah. That's it. There's never enough "better" to get you to "happy".

And I think that's the mistake we make. Thinking that there's enough stuff to make us feel better, and that if we have enough of it, we'll reach happy. How can things have so much meaning, so much happy potential, before we have them? And yet once we acquire them, they lose their glow. It's that age-old quip "you never know what you have until it's gone", but why is that?

I think people get accustomed to the luxuries they have and consider themselves entitled to them. They lose their appreciation and wonder for the beautiful things they have, and they think themselves as possessors - rather than receivers - of things. Actually, maybe people begin to value things instead of their Savior. Instead of people. Instead of life, and blessings, and hope. They start to value things, and themselves.

That's what I've done, and that's what made me lose happiness. Caring about all the things I don't have, enjoying the future I don't yet know.  It starts to hurt. And we do it to ourselves.

But from this moment forward, just enjoy the moment. Enjoy the people, the buzzing of life's glory and hope, the sweet peace of a present and sovereign savior. Love it and pour yourself into it recklessly, and don't hold back anymore. I'm tired of holding back and overthinking and being bitter. And waiting for better times to make me happier. But nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, and in that we dwell: joyful, hopeful, content.

It's the most beautiful, promising, purpose-dripping life we could ever know. It's a life drenched in passion and joy. And we won't ever live in wonder aside from that.

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