A reader of the blog and my books e-mailed me this week, he said he was coming to the Northeast this Fall – he lives far away – and wanted to know if it would be possible to visit the farm. He said he wanted to spend a few minutes in paradise.

Each year, we get a number of requests like that, and we tell them that we have two Open Houses, one in the Spring and one in October, and that would be the time to see us if he wished. He messaged back to say he would change his travel plans to make sure and be here on Columbus Day Weekend, the date of the October Open House.

I wrote back and said I needed to caution him about the visit here. Often, people will tell me that I have the perfect life or live in paradise, and those words, while flattering, always make me wince. People who come here in search of the perfect life or to visit paradise will certainly be disappointed.

Because my life is far from perfect, and our farm is not paradise. Paradise is defined as an ideal or idyllic place. In some religions, it is the heavenly abode of the just. Before they got greedy and hungry, Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden, described in the bible as a paradise.

I spent much of life in search of the perfect place, the perfect life. I coveted the lives of many other people, I always wished to live somewhere else, to move somewhere else, to search for the perfect life.  This is a kind of envy and spiritual emptiness that was painful, mostly because it is such an illusion, just as this nice man has in thinking he will find paradise here.

I was always wanting to move, paradise was just around the corner. And one day I realized that the problem with moving was I always came. I haven’t moved more than a few miles ever since. Home is where you make your stand, paradise is where you come to terms with your life.

I am responsible for this, I take photos of beautiful animals in a beautiful place. I don’t photos of the inevitably dark side of life that exists in almost every geography of the world. Just a few years ago, I learned that paradise, if it exists, is inside of me, not outside, and I will not find it looking at someone else’s live or wanting it to be mine.

I am just like you in so many ways, I could not list them. I worry about money, my feet hurt, I wait in long lines at the pharmacy, and sometimes have to split prescriptions up so I can afford them, I mow my lawn, my knees hurt, take pills,  I argue with my wife, get on people’s nerves, get hate mail, struggle with issues of family, worry about my friends.

I will be honest and say I love my life, every day of it, ups and downs, darkness and light, successes and failures. To me a perfect life is a full life, one with triumphs and failures. Paradise for me is learning to be authentic, opening up to life, forgiving and letting go, facing the reality of things,  living in nature, being with animals, accepting myself, learning to listen, learning to do good.

I told the man e-mailing me he is welcome here, but if he is looking for paradise, he best keep on going North or going up to the angels, paradise is not a place I would ever want to live or visit. How shallow and dull it would be.