I have something shocking to tell you. Are you sitting down? Brace yourself. Are you ready? Here goes.

I didn’t wash my car last month.

Isn’t that awful? What’s worse is this: I don’t intend to wash it this month either. Isn’t that terrible?

Washing my car is one of the things I don’t do because it doesn’t pass my rocking chair test. When I’m an old man sitting in my rocking chair looking back at my life, I’m not going to be saying ”Gee I wish I’d spent more time washing my car. If I’d only scrubbed those whitewalls a little more often, I could have had a really happy life.”
Applying my rocking chair test keeps me from doing a whole host of wasteful things from dusting furniture to holding a grudge to eating spinach. It also keeps me from doing some really stupid things. I know I’m not going to be sitting in my rocking chair thinking ”I wish I’d snorted coke”
Of course it’s not always that simple. Take television. It’s not likely I’ll be sitting in my rocking chair thinking ”I wish I’d watched more television.” However I might be thinking ”I wish I had relaxed more” and watching television is a form of relaxation.
Even trickier is reading. Will I be sitting in my rocking chair wishing I had read more? Or will I have wished I’d spent less time reading and more time experiencing things firsthand? Tough call.
The best thing my rocking chair test does is to remind me that it’s better to do than to own. I may be in my rocking chair wishing I had taken more trips, gone to more ballgames, attended more concerts. It’s not likely that I’ll be thinking ”Gee I wish I’d bought a bigger house and a fancier car”
I’ve made this essay personal because the rocking chair test is personal. Thinks that flunk my rocking chair test may pass yours with flying colors and vice versa. But there’s one thing I suspect is true for all of us.

That rocking chair is closer than we think.

I was sitting in my car at a stoplight intersection listening to the radio. I was, I guess, lost in the moment, thinking how happy I was to be inside my nice warm car. It was cold and windy outside, and I thought, ”Life is good.”

Now this was a long light. As I waited, I noticed two people huddled together at the bus stop. To my eyes, they looked uncomfortable; they looked cold and they looked poor. Their coats looked like they came from a thrift store. They weren’t wearing stuff from The Gap. I knew it because I’d been there.

This couple seemed to be doing their best to keep warm. They were huddled together and I thought to myself, “Oh, those poor people in that punishing wind.”

But then I saw their faces. Yes, they were huddling, but they were also laughing. They looked to be sharing a good joke, and, suddenly, instead of pitying them, I envied them. I thought, “Huh, what’s so funny?” They didn’t seem to notice the wind. They weren’t worried about their clothes. They weren’t looking at my car thinking, “I wish I had that.”

You know how a single moment can feel like an hour? Well, in that moment, I realized I had assumed this couple needed my pity, but they didn’t. I assumed things were all bad for them, but they weren’t and I understood we all have the power to make moments of happiness happen.

Now maybe that’s easy for me to say. I feel lucky to have fans around the world, a house with a roof, and a wife who puts up with me. But I must say I felt this way even when I was working at Long John Silver’s. I worked there for 11 years as a fry cook. When you work at a place that long, you see teenagers coming in on their first dates; then they’re married; then they’re bringing in their kids. You witness whole sections of people’s lives.

In the beginning it seemed like a dead-end job. But at least I had a job. And frankly, it was easy. After 2 weeks, I knew all I needed to know, and it freed my mind. The job allowed me to dream about what my life could become. The first year I worked there, we got robbed. I lay on the floor; I thought I was going to die. I didn’t think I stood a chance. But everything turned out alright. A lot of people look at life as a series of miserable tasks but after that, I didn’t.

I believe this is something all of us can do: try to be happy within the context of the life we’re actually living. Happiness is not a situation to be longed for, or a convergence of lucky happenstance. Through the power of our own minds, we can help ourselves. This I believe.

I believe that God does not know the future. I arrived at this belief after a long and difficult journey through — and eventually away from — the faith in which I was raised.

When I was young, many people told me, “God knows everything.” For years I tried to force my beliefs to conform to this view. But finally I took my personal leap of faith: I believe that God loves honesty more than conformity. And so I decided to go where the spirit moved me, even if that was away from the spiritual home of my ancestors.

I believe that the fate of our world is not locked in by Scripture, but that the future is shaped by the laws of nature and by what we humans voluntarily do during our time on this planet.

Many people believe every sunrise and sunset, every birth and death, every earthquake, flood and plague is a voluntary act of God. Like most scientists, I believe that involuntary laws of nature explain the behavior of planets, tectonic plates, weather systems and viruses. The earth continually spins and dispassionately quakes. Catastrophes happen infrequently. They are manifestations of the same laws of nature that always govern the universe.

I believe God never tweaks the laws of nature to achieve some desired outcome. Having accepted this, I do not agonize over why God allows evil to occur.

I don’t expect God to intervene to help my team win a basketball game, either. As a kid, I thought God knew who would win before the game began. But today I’m convinced nobody knows for sure, not even God.

When I studied science and engineering in college, I met lots of people who had stopped believing in God. They asked, “If science explains the behavior of everything, from electrons to galaxies, then who needs God?”

I decided I still did. I agreed that science eliminates the need for a Creator, but the Creator is only one of the masks of God. The dispassionate mathematical laws of physics seem austere and impersonal, like a star or the moon. But the universe contains more than that. It also includes creatures like us who create purpose and meaning. Gravity does not care, but I do.

Physics does not explain the difference between sound waves and a song, or the difference between sex and love. Physics explains my body, but not my soul.

I believe my soul inspires me to make decisions to diminish pain and increase love in the lives I touch. Lots of times I try, but fail. On a good day I actually get it right! And God is pleasantly surprised.