Short Story By: Brad Burns

The simple word above this sentence could possibly be the key to all human happiness. It states ever so simply what so many of us fail to achieve. We strive at work and in our personal lives for the definition of this word to ring true. The word above implies contentment, yet energy. It implies things that are achieved and things we still seek. It brings emotions that contain contentment and fill our souls with the things we want until we become satisfied. When someone goes to bed at the end of the day and reflects on the day that has past, if ones waking hours were filled with both good and bad. Energy and rest, things enjoyed and things denied, things possessed and things coveted, things from the past laced with future dreams, then the simple word at the top of this page has been achieved. The word so simple that when we say it, the sound of this single word really says it all. There are no other words needed before or after it, because the one simple word stands alone. The word that implies courage and fear, self-confidence and restraint, good and bad, and every other opposite that can be described in human words. A mixture of both things that can produce an evenness of the soul. A level field and a flat ground in which to stand. The balance we seek is the satisfaction we crave.

Personal lives and relationships are necessary to keep us satisfied and happy. These relationships don' t always go perfectly and the highs often are followed by the lows. The things that we learn about our friends and those we share our most intimate secrets with serve as nourishment for us and keep us happy at night. The problems we are allowed to experience through the lives of others serve as a relief from our own burdens. Sometimes the things we allow to distract us don' t seem quite as bad when we look at the lives of others. Sometimes we are grateful for the things we are allowed to have. We are grateful for our friends and our intimate equals and we are allowed to appreciate them. If we pay attention to what is in our lives right now, then we are able to experience growth and happiness. We allow ourselves to seek out true things and real feelings. We allow ourselves just enough of the bad to really appreciate the good. We look around and we see the good things we already have. We cherish our friends and our intimate equals. We see the balance in our personal lives if its there to be seen. If it isn't there, then we continue looking for it until we find it. We all experience it from time to time but all of us want it. We all want to exist inside the contentment of being understood and true emotions filled with love and warmth. We long for these things from the bottom of our souls.

When we wake in the morning, fresh from a night' s sleep and dreams, the building of energy in our bodies and minds can be very exciting. The thoughts we conceive during this early hour in the morning contains so much possibility. When the sun starts to come up and night becomes day, the world begins to change and the dreams from the night begin to fade. The things we allowed ourselves to dream about during the night seem less real in the daytime. The daytime thoughts hold different goals and different rewards. The thoughts we leave behind in our beds are much more exciting and so much more interesting than anything found in the daytime. If we allowed ourselves to remain in bed, the magic would surly disappear. The magic exists because of the daytime and our appreciation of its change to night. The darkness and the thoughts we embrace at night will always hold more interest to those of us who pay attention. The daytime only makes us value it more. The daytime is a necessity to help us get back to a place of better things. The night brings us so much more satisfaction, if lived properly, than anything that occurs during the day. The night time is when some of really feel more alive. The darkness that covers the land serves to transform things and make things less clear. Thing that are not perfectly visible enable us to imagine some of their existence. We fill in things we don' t see with things from our own imagination. For the same reasons that reading a book tells us more than watching a movie ever can, we fill in the missing components of the night. We fill in imperfections not visible during this time. We make things better with our own reality. We create our own reality and in the nighttime, all things are possible. All real things exist at night. The real things and the interesting things come out at night. Nighttime brings out our true selves sometimes, if we let it. Some of us are more awake at night. Some of us belong to the night.

In a world where the food we eat and the water we drink is filled with all kinds of chemical additives and things to facilitate faster growth, so must we take things to level our minds. The mind reacts to things differently now than the minds of those who lived before us. It was once possible to learn all human knowledge during ones lifetime. In the early nineteen hundreds at the turn of the century all human knowledge was limited. In today' s world we are forced to adapt and thrive in an information society. We are forced to know things and do things every day those were inconceivable just a few years ago. The things we do for a living have a way of taking great tolls on the balance of our minds. Prescription drugs help even these imbalances out. While those generations before us felt little of these pressures, we in the modern world must not only cope with but must actually thrive in these type of all knowing real time information sharing. The prescription drugs we take to cope with these things serve as part of the balance in our modern lives. With the right balance of chemicals in our bodies, we are allowed to continue with the true realizations that are a part of our lives. We are able to deal. We are better adapted than we were before. The real person inside still gets to come out. These prescription drugs don' t dampen the real longings of our souls. The real part of our souls that seek balance and uniformity are allowed to thrive in the chemical balance brought on by the right prescription or the right mix of nutrition and care of ones self. We aren' t any less because of these drugs. We are made more whole and more able to be apart of things. We still get to go home at night and dream. We still get to lie in bed at the end of the day and think about the things that pleased us. We are allowed to see the end of the day and we are allowed to enjoy the satisfaction of this time, when the day has been good. We are allowed to appreciate the person lying beside us and there is peacefulness in this time at the end of the day. The prescription drugs got us here. The prescription drugs allowed us to get past the bad to reach the good. The side effects can' t measure up to being allowed to survive the day and embrace the memories of the balance found in a day lived fully. The end justifies the means sometimes.

I value the end of the day. I value many things described above and I still seek the balance I have explained above to the best of my ability. I find this balance sometimes. I feel satisfied in places of understanding and real feelings. I appreciate the roads that led here. I remember the things I learned getting to this place. I don't forget the bad that eventually turned into the good. I tell stories of times gone by and things yet to come. I take people with me sometimes to places where I have been. I see understanding and I experience things that others have lived through before. I value all people and I cherish my friends. Some friends serve as anchors in the balance of my life.

The balance of things is the most important thing sometimes. Just enough bad to appreciate the good. Just enough to keep the balance. The balance that I have described always exists inside in certain places and times. A place where there are always more stories and more things to communicate.

There are always more tales to tell. There will always be more time and places to tell them. There will always be summer nights and open windows and complete understanding in certain places. There will always be a balance in the stories that come from places of creativity and honest emotions.