What Sun Tea Has Taught Me About Happiness
I was drinking some sun tea that I made and my mind started wandering as it often does on the weekend and I thought about years ago when I was in the Marines. I have been dealing with a little bit of depression lately and I started to realize that sun tea has taught me a lot about happiness. Now, lets rewind to August of 2010 for a little bit.
I was a Company Commander in the Marines and preparing my unit to go to Afghanistan for a route clearance mission in southwest Afghanistan. We were training in Twenty-nine Palms, CA. If you are not accustomed with Twenty-nine Palms, it is in the middle of the Mojave desert and it is hotter than the devil taking a crap on a dumpster fire. We were out there for a month and I often found training to be far more miserable than combat because it has all of the discomfort but without the excitement and higher sense of purpose. During this month, I would take an old Gatorade bottle and put some canteen water, an MRE sugar packet, and Lipton tea bag in and set it out in the desert sun. After a long day of watching machine gun ranges or riding around in over-heating vehicles, I would return to the Battalion’s tent village and my tea would be ready, I would bury it to cool it down and drink it in the evening. It was the best part of my day. It was a happy moment. Even though it was still in the high nineties late at night, it was a perfect moment of my own making.
Late during my time in the Marines, I was often depressed and I still have my moments now. I don’t think I am chemically depressed like some. I just have experienced a “full life” and sometimes my mind goes to dark places. I had forgotten about what sun tea taught me. Happiness is intentional. Making a bottle of sun tea was planned. I created those moments for myself. Money could not have bought that experience. Happiness is a prepared state or experience. I have to put myself in position to be happy. This goes for my career, my life at home, etc. Sun tea taught me this. I can’t buy happiness but I can plan for it. It has to be intentional. Happiness isn’t the end of the trip but the small moments on the journey. Life will have enough stress, heart-ache, and chaos without me adding to it. I need to bank little moments of happiness when I can because no one knows when life will start swinging at you with all of its fury. Plan to be happy now, not years down the road. Thanks, sun tea.
