On a train from Chicago to Portland several years ago, I met a man who told me that there was a key to finding more happiness in life – personal or job-related, it didn’t matter -- and that he could give it me. He insisted on one condition though: that everything he told me was confidential but that I was to eventually pass this secret along to a stranger, only one new person, once I find myself comfortable with doing so.
This man was so unassuming that I did not think twice about him when he first pardoned himself as he wiggled his bottom against the green fake leather chair of the Empire Builder. He said that he would not make a very good travel companion for he preferred to sleep for most of the train ride, whenever he could, a trip he took once a week. He didn’t go all the way to Portland, but stopped off in Vancouver, an hour shy of the end of the line. He went to Vancouver every Sunday and came back every Wednesday. I smiled and told him it was alright, I had some reading to do. I wasn’t sure I bought his initial assessment as I have often found that the ones who preface the morning stating that they “don’t usually complain” are the ones that often spend all day doing just that. So, I wasn’t convinced I had heard the last of this passenger, but I pulled the paperback book out of my bag and felt the softness of the pages in my hands.
He settled in, stuffing a small shapeless black bag beneath his chair. Soon, his eyes closed and he drifted off to sleep. I too slept through Minnesota and North Dakota and when the morning light peeked through the corner of our window, I read some Faulkner short stories as the train rumbled further towards Montana. Sometime around nine, the man woke and asked where we were. I must admit that I am leery of planes and trains, mostly in wanting to avoid strangers and odd, awkward conversation. I shutter at such small talk. When I am stuck next to someone like that, I usually can count down the minutes, laboriously noting each minute until we arrive at our destination. This particular trip would not allow such a luxury. This trip took forty-four hours and there were things I knew I could not avoid. The man cleared his throat and ran his two fists through his hair. I clutched my book, afraid of a salesman’s pitch or a story, a hardship or a scam to get money that, frankly, I did not possess.
When he mentioned that he had been given a gift of knowledge that he wanted to share — with the oddest of conditions — I listened, for I found I had no choice.
“No reason to be afraid. I don’t have a story, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I don’t have a down-on-my-luck-rags-to-riches story to tell you. And I definitely don’t want your money. I am not even offering you a great scheme or selling angle. My offer is simple, so simple. It is a new way to thinking that could be considered . . .well, secretive. I am guessing that if my knowledge proposition interests you, it is because you don’t have a lot of money, or a lot of luck, and that you could use a little good fortune. I am not selling anything, I promise you, but still I offer you something – a bit of knowledge. That is all. And it is in this knowledge that I hope will help you from this day forward.”
I closed my book but kept my right index finger stuck between two pages, marking my place. His voice seemed kind, his eyes were soft as they glanced out the window. I was struck by this — his ease, his relaxed nature. He didn’t seem intent on making a sale. I didn’t feel the pressure because it seemed as if he didn’t feel any pressure, but I do know that any stranger that tells you he definitely doesn’t want your money, most definitely does want your money, he is just gauging how much he can get. Experience told me that but somehow I trusted him. I didn’t sense he needed to seize any vulnerability I may have showed or would reveal. If it was a sale he was after, he was letting it come to him. I admired that but still questioned his motives. He scratched his chin with the tips of his fingers and watched the dirt brown landscape sputter by, the back of a factory and abandon buildings in Malta, Montana.
He kept looking out the window and as his blue eyes followed the broken towns fall away mile by mile, he smiled and said, “I must tell you my name. That is the first step in trust. I reveal things to you to let you know I am worthy of your time and of your ear. My name is Timothy Jancovick. I am 61 years old, divorced, with a son I have lost. First to an angry and bitter divorce and then to drugs. I am not proud of this but I tell you this because it is what shapes my every waking thought. It has come — as much as I would like to tell you otherwise — it has come to define me. I worked in a spark plug factory for 37 years, but that neither made me a happy man or a rich man. Think about that. Those three things are the first I choose to define me: my age, my marital status, my offspring. With all three, I am on the losing end. But yet I sit here and offer you hope just as I seek to gain hope with my own words. I don’t have a great deal but what I have, most of all, is an understanding, a formula in getting the most of your every moment.”
He placed his train ticket in the silver stem on the back of the seat in front of us.
“Do you realize how much of our lives we spend waiting — for something or someone? Hmmm? Any ideas?”
I shook my head and set my paperback on top of my bag at my feet.
“I don’t either. Once you think about that question, really think about the possibility of the answer, it is startling. The answer is actually probably somewhere around 90%. Hard to believe, isn’t it? It doesn’t take a mathematician or a genius to confirm that number, the common man can answer it most accurately. But that is the truth. 90% of your life is spent waiting, wishing for something else beyond what you are doing at that moment. Think about that. Nine moments out of ten are spent waiting – and not actively doing something for you, you are not productively moving forward. Think about the moments that make up your day, your common every day kind of day. You stand in line – how many in any one given day? You wait to talk to someone, you wait for someone to finish their job so you can do yours, you wait for your dinner to cook, you wait for things to develop. You wait for the work day to end, you wait for the weekend, you wait for payday at the end of the month, your vacation in two months. You wait for the next holiday, you wait for Thanksgiving, you wait for Christmas. You wait for winter to end, for the temperatures to rise. You wait for the clouds to clear, for the sun to come out. You wait until your baby will sleep through the night, you wait for those first steps, you wait until he is potty-trained, you wait for their hugs before they go to bed. Life is not simple, it hard. You wait for things to get better, to improve. You wait for the hard times to become good times. Meanwhile, the waits are extended, they multiply, they overlap, they intermingle and get tangled up in each other. There are so many of them it is hard to tell one waiting moment from the next and soon you forgot that you were waiting. It becomes as natural as breathing. The waiting multiplies and becomes so large that you find there is a hollowness that has eaten you up. There is nothing left but to wait to cease waiting. When you want to stop waiting, you wait to die.”
“Now the flip side of this is that if the numbers were reversed — and you were productive and active 90% of your time — that wouldn’t be good either, you would die from exhaustion. Common sense tells you that.” He smiled at me and shook his head. “So that is not the goal here. But what is the answer? How do you find happiness? And keep it? Long term, no matter what happens to us in our daily lives? Obviously, we must find a balance, a sense of moderation.”
“But sometimes you can’t help waiting,” I said to him. “You can’t help a lot of things that happen to you.”
“Yes.”
“Most of what you said, most of those things you mentioned, you can’t help, you just have to wait for them. You can’t change the weather, you can’t change when Christmas falls or when your vacation starts. You can’t change the commute to and from work. You can’t change traffic or long lines at the market. You can’t change payday, you can’t change so many things. They are out of your control. Sometimes bad things happen, beyond your best intentions or plans, and you can’t do anything but wait. You have no choice. There is nothing you can do about it. Absolutely nothing you can do.”
“Of course,” I said. He smiled at me as if I had given the right answer. I thought at that moment – I am not sure why I thought this – but I thought, this guy seems like a monk or something. It was his smile. Or a yogi or a Buddha or something. He had that kind of calm. When he spoke, his words rolled off his tongue as if it were made of butterscotch.
“Of course. Many things are out of our control but many of those things are in our control. Often, we find it easier to wait — and do nothing — then it is work towards something. Of course, that is human nature. But does it have to be that way? If 1 + 1 = 2 were so simple, it wouldn’t be a lesson that had to be taught. But it is taught — in a billion first grade classrooms. It is only simple when you look back at it. It is the beginning of it all. And it is something that you have to learn first – as a general notion – before you can move on and understand other, more complex rules and concepts. Nothing is simple, you know that, at least not at first. We must remember that obtaining knowledge is very difficult. It is only when we put things into the context of everything else that we can make sense of it all. It is difficult to do, however, until later, usually after we have gone through it. But what if we could? What if we had that understanding before we had to go through the process?”
I did not know if I was supposed to answer that question but I did anyway. “If we had the answers, before we were forced to go through the process, I am imagining that life would be . . .um, a lot less stressful, I guess. Less tense, less pressure.”
“You are right. If you are able to balance your expectations and your reaction to those results, however seeped in disappointment or frustration, you will be well on your way down the road to living better days, and enjoys clearer nights.”
He smiled and again looked out the window. I watched out the Montana landscape slide past, the dizzying array of green and browns, lulling me back to sleep. When I awoke, we were still in Montana.
“You like Faulkner?”
I sat up in my seat. “Uh, yeah, so far. This is just some short stories. This is the first book I have read by him. I mean, I have always meant to read something but I just never did.”
“He was a drunk.”
“He was?”
“Did you know that?
“No, I didn’t. I actually don’t know anything about him personally. I just know he was a great writer and I should have read AS I LAY DYING in high school, or whatever it was that I was supposed to read.”
“So you will read him now. And now is the time that you should read him.”
I looked down at the cover of my book and traced the words “Collected Stories” with my thumb.
“All writers are drunks. Or philanderers,” he said with a laugh, “Or both. And that is probably how it should be, I guess, since their writing doesn’t seem to suffer from it. We hear the sad and tragic stories but it is only about the great writers we hear about, so maybe there is a connection. Or maybe the tragedy happens to us all, great writers or not.”
“Yeah.”
He reached down and grabbed his bags.
“No more waiting. Use your time. Don’t wait. Not for anything. Make each moment work until you reach the next moment. Think. There is a lot of time to waste. Don’t do it. Don’t resign yourself to reaching from one point to the next by merely waiting – fill that time with complete thoughts and full events.”
I watched him rise and throw his bag over his shoulder.
“Were you wondering why I go to Vancouver each week?”
“Yeah, I was. Why Vancouver? Why so often?”
“It is where my son is buried. I took a job there so I can work for him. I bring him closer to me by being there, working, visiting his grave once a week. It is what I want to do, all I want to do. My goals in life have changed, and given where I am right now, this is where I want to be.”
He turned and headed up the aisle towards the vestibule of the train. I did not watch him leave, but opened my Faulker and stuck the bookmark further into the book and began a new story, “That Evening Sun,” as the morning sun watched through the glass of the train, it’s heat warming my face.
