While in Milan, Augustine sees a happy, drunk beggar and remarks to his friends about the beggar’s sad state. But then Augustine begins to compare his own misery of trying to gain joy through fame from his knowledge and speeches, and realizes the beggar has it better. The key question, Augustine realizes, is where, or from Whom, one seeks joy.

From Augustine’s Confessions, Book 6, chapter 9-10. (italics are mine).

9. I was still eagerly aspiring to honors, money, and matrimony; and You did mock me. In pursuit of these ambitions I endured the most bitter hardships, in which You were being the more gracious the less You would allow anything that was not You to grow sweet to me. Look into my heart, O Lord, whose prompting it is that I should recall all this, and confess it to You. Now let my soul cleave to You, now that You have freed her from that fast-sticking glue of death.

….How wretched I was at that time, and how You did deal with me so as to make me aware of my wretchedness, I recall from the incident of the day on which I was preparing to recite a panegyric on the Emperor. In it I was to deliver many a lie, and the lying was to be applauded by those who knew I was lying. My heart was agitated with this sense of guilt and it seethed with the fever of my uneasiness.

For, while walking along one of the streets of Milan, I saw a poor beggar -- with what I believe was a full belly -- joking and hilarious. And I sighed and spoke to the friends around me of the many sorrows that flowed from our madness, because in spite of all our exertions -- such as those I was then laboring in, dragging the burden of my unhappiness under the spur of ambition, and, by dragging it, increasing it at the same time -- still and all we aimed only to attain that very happiness which this beggar had reached before us; and there was a grim chance that we should never attain it!

For what he had obtained through a few coins, got by his begging, I was still scheming for by many a wretched and tortuous turning -- namely, the joy of a passing felicity. He had not, indeed, gained true joy, but, at the same time, with all my ambitions, I was seeking one still more untrue. Anyhow, he was now joyous and I was anxious. He was free from care, and I was full of alarms. Now, if anyone should inquire of me whether I should prefer to be merry or anxious, I would reply, “Merry.” Again, if I had been asked whether I should prefer to be as he was or as I myself then was, I would have chosen to be myself; though I was beset with cares and alarms. But would not this have been a false choice? Was the contrast valid? Actually, I ought not to prefer myself to him because I happened to be more learned than he was; for I got no great pleasure from my learning, but sought, rather, to please men by its exhibition -- and this not to instruct, but only to please. Thus You did break my bones with the rod of thy correction.

10. Let my soul take its leave of those who say: “It makes a difference as to the object from which a man derives his joy. The beggar rejoiced in drunkenness; you longed to rejoice in glory.” What glory, O Lord? The kind that is not in You, for, just as his was no true joy, so was mine no true glory; but it turned my head all the more. He would get over his drunkenness that same night, but I had slept with mine many a night and risen again with it, and was to sleep again and rise again with it, I know not how many times. It does indeed make a difference as to the object from which a man’s joy is gained. I know this is so, and I know that the joy of a faithful hope is incomparably beyond such vanity.