What is happiness to you....?

This is a message I received from a friend who has been traveling all over Asia for the past few months:

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  I made it back alive and thanks for the love on the pictures (yours are amazing as well). I really wanted to thank you for taking the time to send me a message almost a year and a half ago (its pasted below). When I look back at where I was last spring all I can think about is how confusing everything seemed to me. I had a lot of ideas about different direction I could head but I really had no clue what made me happy.

  
  

  The last nine months changed my perspective on many things. It changed what I treasured and what I laughed at. It freed me from a lot of innate obligations that were vicariously placed on me by others. It was a time of reflection, love, and meditation and like any fufiling meditation it both cleared and filled my mind.

  
  

  When I got your email last year I was very set on accepting a job that I had just been offered and taking the first steps down a path that in hindsight was really more of a treadmill. After reading what you wrote to me I began to reconsider my decision and a one year latter I couldn't picture being happier with what I've done.

  
  

  I hope you're doing well out east and that we can catch up soon!

  
  

  
  

  The message I sent him:

  
  

  I don't remember what you majored in (sports medicine?) what are your plans? I know mad people ask you that now that youre graduating and they want to hear something mature and adult-like but not me! and im slightly concerned about this "assuming im employed" business, you should give yourself at least this summer to explore and/or learn whatever crazy random thing you have always wanted to and definitely get your mind together

  im sorry to say that people get sucked into the routine of work and 2 days on the weekend to plop down and watch their tvs with a thousand channels

  i love my job and its most definitely unconventional but i swear i go through these periods where im filled with despair, and i think to myself: how do people do this? how do they work these jobs with only 2 weeks of vacation a year and feel like no matter what happens after their death, that they did everything they could to make the most of their time on earth? how the hell will I ever go everywhere and cram as many languages and cultures into my brain with only 14 days A YEAR?! dont we work so we can live and not the other way around?

  i go back and forth between the idea that we exist to reproduce, thus ensuring a part of us continues through the ages, (which is not as cold and harsh as it seems, the natural world is mysterious and spectacular) and the idea that the mere fact that consciousness within us exists means there is something far greater and far beyond everything we see around us

  but whichever is leading in my mind that week it doesnt matter, it means this very second is the most valuable thing there is

  we begin to forget and ignore that because the structure of our society can mislead us into thinking we need to do or possess certain things when we dont,

  I hope your state of mind. being happy on feeling peace, takes precedence over all else because really thats all you have

  (im not saying you dont need some semblance of stability......or do you?)

  
  

  anyway, i can tell you with certainty that if I die as I type this I will die knowing that I lived my life (up to this moment at least) as fully and happily as I could, with an open heart and an open mind

  I hope you can say the same, or at least strive to, because in all of my adventures and drug-led spiritual inquiries that is all that matters in the end

  
  

  take care, and please smile and laugh a lot and make fun of how absurd we are, grown-ups are so serious all the time i swear!