Someday Never Comes

John Fogerty's words are profoundly simple and absolutely true.

Some people spend their lives searching for happiness. It is always just up around the next corner. They vigorously clutch and grab for it yet it eludes them time and again.

According to the reigning worldview, happiness is inextricably tied to success, and success is defined by a society obsessed with outward appearances. Financial gain motivates and mobilizes us to chase what is perceived to be life worth living; the prestigious job, the showplace house, the expensive wardrobe or the flashy latest model.

These accomplishments are the hallmarks of happiness and success that are currently revered.

What so often unfolds has a tragic or comedic tilt, depending on the mood of the moment. Instead of enjoying the common everyday blessings of life many people exhaust themselves clutching and grabbing for the rewards of consumerism. They rush madly past simple pleasures in pursuit of some idealized deception.

A bird chirping outside their window only distracts them. The bright sunshine or blue skies are completely lost on them. Their drive to achieve happiness and success is all consuming.

We have been detrimentally influenced by the entertainment industry. Our concept of happiness has been tainted by the make-believe world of television and movies.

People routinely suspend their capacity to think while accepting whatever scenario writers and directors churn out. Ethical standards are fashioned on the big-screen and we are expected to be mimics. The mores that are elevated to the norm are those which are packaged and marketed to us by pop-culture icons.

We have been hoodwinked by a scam that reduces happiness and success to plastic caricatures. The purveyors of fantasy have created a cookie-cutter image of perfection that cannot be achieved or sustained in the real world.

Yet like robotic drones people seek to emulate the pipe dream misconceptions of life. More often than not the illusion is not only acceptable to the mainstream, but is encouraged to be required behavior.

After all, it is what keeps the gears of the turnstiles grinding. The huckster’s words are seductive and hard to resist. For the promise of happiness and success people gleefully hand over their dollars and pay out their lives.

Someday they’ll get their act together, someday everything will fall into place for them, someday success will come flooding down around them and they will be happy. When that attitude governs life, then John Fogerty is exactly right: Someday Never Comes.

Unfortunately, getting swept along in the tidal drift of the crowd is difficult to avoid. The pressure to capitulate to the cultural norm is intense. We are constantly urged to run up the white flag and give in to the inevitable.

No one is immune from the pressure to conform to societal expectations.

For those who by choice or by osmosis surrender to the prevailing value system, there is no room for anything reflective or spiritual. Contentment awaits them at the finish line somewhere in the future.

Meanwhile the marvels of life escape their notice. Books, ideas or the art of conversation are foreign to them. A newborn child does not cause them to even momentarily consider the Maker of miracles. There is no time to nurture relationships of any kind for those could be excess baggage that slows them down.

Sunsets aren’t beautiful displays to be enjoyed; starlit skies are not an invitation for romantic handholding walks. The sweet mysteries revealed in the complex intricacies of nature have no weight to counter-balance their fixated sprint toward destination happiness.

Someday they will bask in the pleasure of winning the race. The present is swallowed by the urgent demands of grabbing and getting. Someday everything will be different and then they’ll concentrate on relational endeavors.

Until then, leave them alone to fulfill their desires, thank you very much.

Deceived by the stature and security of affluence, far too many of us give the full measure of devotion to what is ultimately a mirage that obscures the real meaning of life. Prosperity holds subtle dangers that erode the infrastructure of faith in God.

Jesus of Nazareth warned us: “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

True happiness and success can only be found in a life rich in faith; a life rich in faith means finding purpose in service to others while keeping material wealth in its proper temporal perspective.

When it comes to a life rich in faith, may Someday Never Comes be merely an eloquent song with zero prophetic overtones.