There was a troubadour who traveled in Spain. Every year, he made the cycle. He was in the north during the summer and in the south during the winter, and he went around during the Middle Ages, and he tried to coincide his stops with places of pilgrimages and the various events that were going on, and he made his living as a troubadour. Frequently along the way, he would join up with bands of gypsies and travel part of the way with them. At other times, he would travel with sheep herders. At times, he would travel with the troubadours, sometimes with circuses.
He wasn’t a very happy man; in fact, he was a very unhappy man. He was well aware of his poverty and how he had to sleep with fleas and lice, how he had to sleep in the cold, roadside, and how people threw things at him. All in all, he was a good troubadour. He sang beautiful songs and sang them beautifully. They had a lot of meaning to everybody but him. He no longer really heard the words and never really listened to what he sang, but other people did.
One day, he was in Seville. The Moors had left the city not too long before, so this was the early 16th century, and there was a whole lot of new wealth for the Spanish. He was very much aware of that, and how poor he was, especially when he got to the city. It used to be a Moorish town, and now it was a Spanish town, and it was filled with castles and alcazars. He was singing in the courtyard, it was a really plaintive song, very plaintive, very sad, very melancholy, about the dreams of wealth and paradise, and it touched one old man very much, who was a new Dom, and gave him such joy that he said, “Come here,” and the troubadour went over to the Dom’s balcony, and the Dom threw him down a gold coin, which was a fantastic amount of money for this troubadour. Fantastic. I imagine it’s equivalent to a year’s wages. And he said to him, “You just sing so beautifully. You just sing so tremendously. You’re the best troubadour that I’ve ever heard, and I want you to have this. And when you come back next year, I’ll even give you more than this.”
Well, from that moment, the troubadour’s life changed, and he went on his next cycle, constantly looking forward to getting back to Seville. He heard his own songs, and he changed them to even better ones. He heard what they meant, and he made them even more beautiful. He was the best troubadour that he ever was. He was so happy that the fleas didn’t bother him, the lice didn’t bother him. His whole life had changed, and he was just living for getting back to Seville. It was fantastic. As he got closer and closer, and halfway around, he was at Santiago de Compostela, and it was a whole new thing for him. He had a fantastic religious experience at the shrine. He just couldn’t wait to get back.
Happier and happier, he got back to Seville, and he ran to the house, and said, “Is Dom Pedro here? I’m finally back,” and the daughter answered and said, “I’m sorry, señor, but he died about this time last year.” And the Spaniard said, “But he had given me a gold coin, and it made me so happy, and I was living all year just to come back here because he said he would give me more.” And she said to him, “But he has. He already has.” Of course, the troubadour had two options at that point, and that’s where the story ends.
He never spent that gold coin, by the way. He kept it. He lived on all the money he made by being such a better troubadour and such a happier person. And what is happiness then? Was it a gold coin? Somehow he didn’t feel that he had anything to be unhappy about. Anything that he was ever going to be unhappy about just wasn’t going to be a problem. And all the things that he felt he needed the money for, he didn’t even really need the money for.
Why was he not unhappy about the fleas anymore? Or those stupid pilgrims at the shrine where he became one of them? What is happiness? It wasn’t a gold coin for him. Yet it was the hope for more gold somehow because the gold meant that he would be happy. And so before he even had what he thought would make him happy, he was happy. And before you even have what you think you have to have in order to be happy, you can be happy thinking you’re going to get it, before you even have it. It gives you what you want from it, and you don’t even have it.
How different would you be if you thought that next year at this time, you would have a million dollars? How different would you be this year? And you wouldn’t have had the million dollars yet. How happy would you be before you even had what you said you had to have in order to be happy? So, what is it that you have to have in order to be happy?
Apparently nothing. But there are some things you can’t have, and be happy, and that’s fear and unhappiness.
If you knew that starting tomorrow you’d be a happier person, and if by some miracle, each day, you would be happier and happier, and all your troubles would fall away and you would worry less and less and fear less and less and have less to fear, and that each day from now on for the rest of your life, you’d be happier and happier, how would you feel now? Look at how you’re feeling now already.