One man searched for happiness all his life.
He changed cities, people, occupations, roads.
Each time he thought: just a little more — and it will be better there.
One day, exhausted, he came to an old teacher and said:
— Tell me where it is. I am ready to go anywhere.
The teacher looked at him and replied:
— You have already arrived.
The man laughed:
— There is nothing here. No sign. No reward. No feeling.
Then the teacher placed a smooth stone before him —
without inscription, without shape, without value.
— What is this? the man asked.
— A place, said the teacher.
— If you leave, it will remain.
If you stop, it will become yours.
The man took the stone in his hand
and, for the first time in a long while,
went nowhere.
Happiness is not in what you find,
but in where you stop searching.
The object does not work as a talisman,
but as an anchor of presence.
When your gaze falls upon it, it reminds you:
You are already here.
And that is enough to begin.