I spent my childhood as part of a poor family. We spent a lot of time moving from place to place so my dad could run away from whatever he was running from. I have never been what a person might call “stable”. I’ve never been stable emotionally, socially or financially. I’ve grown used to the idea that there are certain things in life that might not change. And some things may only change a little. And I’m thankful for those things that do change for the better.

There will always be trials in life and there will always be things to deal with. No matter whom you are or where you live there are issues to deal with. It’s all based on perspective. As a child, our biggest issue was where we left our lost toy. As we get older, we have to worry about social acceptance by having the newest car or the most up-to-date music or sunglasses or wardrobe. As adults we have to have money and a job and be able to fake self confidence well enough that the rest of the world thinks we’re “normal”. But really how much different are things now than they were before? The toys are made by Mercedes and BMW now. The wardrobe changed from Billabong to Armani.

We’ve become so absorbed in the ideas that without the newest and the best and whatever the “social norm” happens to be at that time in life, that we can’t be happy. It used to be that people could be happy with a minimalistic life. Now there are bumper stickers that state social mentality pretty straightforwardly: “He who dies with the most toys, wins.”

Have we really come to a point in life that we can’t be happy with people anymore? We have to have things to compensate for our lack of compassion and understanding. We’re willing to almost sell our souls to get the things to fit in. We get credit cards and spend money that isn’t ours. We lease cars now because in three years it won’t be the newest and best thing and we can just go trade it in. We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on places to live that we call home.

What is home? I mean really, what is home? It’s that place where we feel safe. Do we need to spend the next thirty years of our lives paying for a place that will most likely not be worth the cost? Andrew Largeman said it best in Garden State: ”You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone.

"You'll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.”

What happened to just being happy? What happened to finding something in life and clinging to it because it made you happy and for no other reason than that?