Kate Smith ’28
Happiness is a deer—
soft-eyed, alert with fear,
listening close for the sound
of wanting drawing near.
We learn early how to chase,
to track it down through time and space
Through milestones and places
When this happens.
When I’m more.
When I finally arrive.
We run so hard toward someday
we forget how to be alive.
We mistake speed for certainty,
desire for direction
believing if we reach it fast
that joy will stay this time.
But happiness is not a prize,
not built for being caught.
It flinches at insistence,
at every hungry thought.
It bolts at expectation,
bleeds under too much weight—
the more you need it to remain,
the quicker it escapes.
So it waits at the edges,
where you’re quiet, not prepared,
in moments you don’t try to keep,
don’t measure, don’t compare.
It drinks from stillness,
stands where laughter fades away,
in the breath before the urge
to look ahead or look away.
Happiness comes when you stop looking,
when the chase is finally done—
not meant to be discovered,
It meets you where you already are.
The emptiness you feel from running
isn’t proof that joy is gone,
just the ache of exhaustion
From running in the wrong direction,
when all you were meant to do was pause.
We’re taught happiness is somewhere else,
a finish line, a place—
but it’s a side effect of presence,
of enough, of a gentle grace.
And sometimes, if you’re still enough,
if the forest grows quite near,
you’ll feel it pass right through your life—
close and alive
like a deer.