The Pursuit of Happiness

Seminar Group Activity

Not long ago, I was told about a group of 500 business professionals who learned a valuable lesson, while attending a three day sales and marketing convention.

During the second day of the seminar, the main speaker suddenly stopped talking in what appeared to be the middle of his speech.  

He slowly scanned the faces in the crowd, noting the bored expressions and mounting impatience.

With a smile, he informed them they were going to do a group activity together. 

He began by giving each person a large orange balloon. Then he asked them to blow it up, tie it off, and to write their name across it using one of the black permanent markers in a basket on each table. 

All of the balloons were then collected and put into an adjacent room, which was totally enclosed in glass.  The sheer magnitude of balloons was an awesome sight.

Then the doors were opened and everyone was ushered into the balloon-filled room and told they had to find their balloon, the one balloon they had written their name on.  However, there was a caveat.  They would have only five minutes to find their balloon. 

In the vast sea of brilliant orange, people were frantically grabbing balloons, pushing, shoving, colliding with others, and there was utter chaos.

At the end of five minutes, not one person had found their own balloon.

Then the speaker asked each person to randomly collect one balloon and give it to the person whose name was written on it. 

Within a few minutes, everyone was holding their own balloon.

As the group returned to their seats, the speaker went back to the front of the room.  Then he said:

"This very same thing is happening in our lives today. 

Everyone everywhere is frantically searching for happiness. They can see it in others around them, but they don't know how to have it, or even how to find it. 

Our happiness lies in the happiness of other people. If you give them their happiness, you will find your own.   

This is the purpose of human life ... the pursuit of happiness."

“A writer soon learns that easy to read is hard to write.” ~CJ Heck