Happiness

Sometime ago, I went for grocery shopping on a fine Saturday morning thereafter dropped by at Damai to have a bowl of noodle soup at my cousin’s food stall in a kopitiam. The owner or rather the operator of the kopitiam sat at my table and we started to chat. The conversation which initially revolved around the mundane concerns of day-to-day life like diet, high blood pressures and medical treatments soon turned to this emotional and soul searching topic - happiness.

She lamented about how difficult it is to be happy these days that she felt like leaving her business behind and pursuing something more meaningful and soul-enriching like working as a social worker. I said everyone would have envied her position being her own boss earning some good money, besides she has her family like her spouse, children and grandchildren whom she could spend time and find joy and happiness with. But she said these were all the superficial impression upon which her life is assessed but in no way does that reflect her innermost feelings, for she felt more sorrow than happiness that sometimes she just felt like throwing her arms in the air and waved that little white flag of surrender to say `I give up’.

She’s past her fifties yet is miserably unhappy. Why is happiness sometimes an easy endeavour for few yet virtually unattainable for some?

To her plight I could only said `don’t worry too much’. I feel this statement has oftentimes become so overused on my part for I couldn’t bring myself to find a proper phrase to comfort someone in need of a little consolation. Months ago I used the same overused phrase on someone whom I met after a long time not seeing each other and I asked her how she was doing, and in reply she said with misty eyes that `life is bitter’ she did not know how to begin to elaborate during that brief meeting but simply lean on my shoulder and sobbed uncontrollably. All I could do was put my arm on her shoulder and the same `not to worry so much’ slipped out my mouth.

Being financially secure does not equate happiness, yes you and me know money can sure solve a lot of our financial troubles providing momentary sigh of relief for the many of us who are mostly working for the sake of money, but having thick wads of cash is not the source of our happiness we all know that.

Is happiness itself not a cliché ?

I have no right to tell someone not to worry for I have never delved into their inner soul to dissect the every fibre of their being to find out the reason for their unhappiness. Like the manner with which we dissect a little mouse in the school laboratory and lay their body parts, intestinal track and all on the operating table and we begin to examine all the parts and we digest and justify and we conclude. But problems in life and happiness in particular are those invisible and intangible parts that could not be physically examined and properly verified as such, thus warrant deeper spiritual insight and understanding.

We are not specialists on how to treat unhappiness because I believe most of us are also learning on a day to day basis on how to stay happy.

Life is like riding a rollercoaster, some days it brings you high up in the air and you are exhilaratingly excited for you have the best view entirely to yourself and everything is lovely and beautiful where the sun shines brightly and the azure sky is as though within your reach; no sooner can you breathe in the beauty of it all it suddenly and heartlessly cruises you down to the seemingly bottomless river below and you look up and admire all the beauty from afar tantalizingly and seducingly beckoning to you yet it is not within your reach for you have already slipped down into the swollen river, following the flow of swirling rushing water and you have to hold onto anything within your grab in order to stay afloat ..

But if you are persevere enough and determine to not let go of your hold, the wheel of life will definitely bring you high up again.. So is the rise and fall of feelings.

We all have had our share of misery and unhappy moments, there are situations that are difficult to deal with, a problem unresolved yet another crops up. We just have to gather enough courage and perserverance to deal with it.

For more than two weeks some time during the past year I had been having persistently irritating sore body and a screaming back pain and the many out of breath situations which made me constantly sank into an inevitable low mood, and I was struggling to look fit when friends invited me to go out for breakfast when the fact was that this fragile body was desperately calling for attention.

Not to mention the many experiences of nursing self-deprecating thoughts and a sense of worthlessness and dejection for momentarily losing the so much needed perspective in my life.

But today I am feeling rather ok, the back pain has diminished so is the sore body.

Feelings, good or bad, these will eventually pass. For a few days it might be raining with thunderstorm and all but given another couple of days there will be sunshine and breezy days and all will be fine again.

Such is life itself. ..