The Story of the Street Lamp and the Missing Keys: Looking for Happiness in the Wrong Places

From the Sufi mystic, Nasreddin.

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

Happiness. It’s a loaded word. Call it contentment. Inner peace. Whatever we call it, let’s all agree that it is what all humans want in life.

The core problem most people have is they pursue paths that don’t lead to happiness. Society, our parents, our friends…they all send us in the wrong direction when it comes to being a happy, contented person.

A funny, wise story from the 13^th century Sufi mystic, Nasreddin, illuminates this beautifully. It goes like this:

One evening, Nasreddin was on a sidewalk looking through the grass and bushes under the light of a lamp post. A friend of his walked by and asked what Nasreddin was doing.

“I’m searching for my house keys,” said Nasreddin.

The friend offered to help, and the two continued searching under the light of the lamp post.

After a while of this, the friend asked,

“Where did you last have your keys?”

“Back at the house,” replied Nasreddin.

Exasperated, the friend shouted,

“Then why are we looking here?!”

Nasreddin plainly stated, “Because the light is better here.”

That, ladies and gentlemen, is us.

How?

Keys=Happiness

First, let’s break down what’s what here. The keys represent happiness. That’s what we’re looking for and having so much trouble finding.

The light shining from the lamp post is what most of us, misguidedly, pursue in life, thinking it will make us happy.

What kinds of things do we search for under the lamp light of life?

-Relationships that we think will cure the broken feeling we have inside.

-Careers that provide the power and wealth that will give us the notoriety and respect we desperately crave…because we’re broken inside.

-Pursuing the perfect body by working out two hours a day and eating 1,500 calories a day of tasteless protein and kale shakes.

-Working your tail off to go to the best college, then the best law school, then the top federal judge clerkship, then make partner at a blue-chip law firm…all because you think this will bring happiness.

Unfortunately, none of those things brings sustained happiness. They provide short-term Dopamine hits that always, always, always fade away.

So why do we get down on our knees and search futilely for our keys in the light, when we know full well that they aren’t there?

The ego fuels the light

Therein lies the rub, because most of us don’t know that we won’t find our keys in the light. And the reason we don’t know is that the ego is the entity that fuels the light.

It says to us, in effect,

“Hey! Look how bright it is over here. Come over here and look for your happiness. It’ll be great!”

The point is that the light is attractive. Alluring. Enticing.

And so is money. And power. And romantic love. And Harvard degrees. And perfectly shaped butts.

I hope you realize how crucial it is to be aware of this. It’s everything.

Where to focus your attention

Because once you’re aware that you’ve been searching for your keys under the lights and that you’ll never find them there, you can train your attention where it needs to be.

Which is…

On the house. The dark house, to be exact.

What does the house represent? Our inner world. Our insides.

The house is dark and scary

And why did I emphasize that the house is dark? Because examining our insides can be scary. Foreboding. Mysterious.

But like it or not, folks, our keys lie somewhere in that dark house so that’s where we need to search for them.

How do we do conduct that search? Fifty million pages have been written about that in some form or other. I’ll offer what my favorite spiritual teachers, Ram Dass, Michael Singer and Eckhart Tolle, have taught me.

First, look at your life and see what ways you’re searching in the light for your keys.

-Are you working ninety hours a week as an associate at a prestigious law firm and feeling miserable most of the time?

-Are you constantly searching for the “right” guy and having no luck?

-Are you always game for trying the latest fad diet, fad workout regimen or even fad spiritual trend?

What do we do once we identify these areas where we’re searching for our keys in the light? We open the front door to our dark house by asking ourselves a fundamental question:

“Why am I doing this?”

Not in an accusatory or denigrating way as in, “Come on, you idiot. You work all the time and you’re miserable. Why the hell are you doing this?!”

No. We ask the question non-judgmentally.

Then we do our best to relax and listen to what comes up, however painful it may be.

It’s about looking inside, not outside

If I were to sum it up it would be this: Instead of looking outside (in the light) to cure what ails us inside, we need to go inside (the house) to cure what ails us inside.

Maybe after posing his question in his dark house the lawyer hears,

“Mom and dad made it abundantly clear to me that they’d love me more if I became a successful lawyer like dad was rather than pursue acting which was what my gut told me.”

What we’re doing when we explore our dark houses is searching for our truth. We’re searching for why we do what we do and why we are the way we are.

I’ve found that talk therapy can be very useful in helping us navigate the scary and often confusing rooms of our inner house and I highly recommend it.

The takeaway

The purpose of this piece, which is massively important, is to make you aware that most of us search for happiness under the bright lights of the streetlamp.

You won’t find it there.

So consider walking out of the light and over to the dark house.

See if you can muster the strength and courage to open the door and walk in.

The keys to your happiness lie inside.