Today, thanks to a snow day, I have been at home relaxing, and I happen to have seen my first episode of a show that for a variety of reasons I have never seen. That show happens to be “How I Met Your Mother,” which is ending this season after a stellar run of nine years. The ninth and final season includes an episode that shows the other side of the story that took place over most of the rest of the episodes, which is set as a lengthy and complicated story of how a well-educated single fellow met the mother of his children. Filled with witty jokes and long-running gags, the series explores the misadventures young professionals regarding the complexities of a love life. The series has been wildly popular and acclaimed and gotten a lot of awards.

Yet for some serious reasons I have found the show a very uncomfortable one to deal with. For one, the show, from what I have seen and read, is not so different from my own life. No doubt this is true of many others as well. Obviously, the show strikes a nerve with people. Like most comedy, there is a melancholy edge to the laughs. A great deal of humor results from the alchemy that transmutes the tragedies and frustration of life into something that can bring others to laughter. Some people laugh as a way of distancing themselves from unpleasant realities. Other people laugh because they would rather not cry. Exploring the subterranean world of our relationships and lives is like exploring the ruins of the Nabatean capital of Petra, finding narrow set of valleys and realizing that they spent their civilization’s creative energies in digging inside the rocks to build their city, rather than the more obvious building on top of hills and plains. Of course, long after their own civilization was gone, their city has served as the source of movie sets and apocalyptic longings even if it only houses bedouin seeking tourist dollars and surly camels and extremely friendly donkeys [1].

Of course, the show mainly looks at the problems of dating from the perspective of the fellow (who is not coincidentally based on one of the show’s creator; we create from what we know, after all). There is a core group of core friends dealing with the world of relationships with a spirit that can be best described as youthful and more than a little juvenile. Of course, those who live in glass houses should probably not start stone throwing contests, as I can definitely relate to the epic longrunning drama involved. Recently, though, the show had an episode that focused entirely on the other side of the picture. Instead of looking at the complicated tale of how a decent guy met the mother of his children, it looked at how a wonderful woman had a similarly tangled and dramatic tale of meeting the beloved father of her children. If we are too involved in our own personal drama, we forget that the people we are involved with in our complicated lives have their own drama. This world is complicated for all of us, and we all face our own troubles. Even if this is an unpleasant matter, it reminds us that for us to find people who can really relate to us, we are going to find that they will have their own struggles that allow them to relate to our own, just as our own should give us compassion on the struggles of others. Life is far too short for us to be self-absorbed.

Let us not forget as well one other element that makes the show an ultimately hopeful one. We know how the story ends, and that no matter how difficult and interminable the wait (9 seasons!) we know how the story ends. We have a man looking back on his life and on the journey that he took to get to his desired end knowing that he had what he waited for and searched for in the end. Not only was that true for him, it was also true for the charming and lovely ukelele-playing woman he ended up marrying as well. Sometimes in life we have to remember that the stories we will tell in the future will have a context if we know the result of our endeavors. What could have been a tragic tale of endless suffering becomes a romantic comedy of sorts because we know that he did find their mother, due to a series of odd and quirky circumstances. Doesn’t everyone want a happy ending for themselves, knowing that it is not a happy ending only for us, but also for others as well? Our happiness, after all, is not only happiness for ourselves alone, but it is happiness for a whole group of other people, some of whom may not even exist yet. That happiness does not revolve around us, but involves a whole host of people, loved ones and friends, to share the time and experiences with. Let us hope that we are not lacking such people to share the good times of our life, for a life is not legendary unless there are others to share those legends with.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/04/18/a-donkey-tale/