Happiness

The Nobel prize dramatist Jacinto Benavente said once: "Happiness does not exist in life. There are only happy moments." (free translation).

It is too tough to say that you can have happiness if you want, but it is tougher to say that you won't unless you can.

I've been thinking in happiness lately and I think it is all a matter of your own person, your behaviour. Yesterday I read an interview to the owner of a big Real Estate company and he was saying something like "To make positive the difficult moments is a key to success" (Diari de Tarragona, 13/06/2004). Well, yes, perhaps. But, though, it is very difficult to do so. I learnt sometime ago that personal problems must be left behind at home, you should not take them work. This is surely a fact that makes you be "better" at work. But this is just on your working life.

What makes us happy?

All of us have a to-do list: things that we want to accomplish in order to be happy. Obviously they are different for each one of us. The problem starts when our to-be-happy list does not match with what most of the people want. If you live in a city, this must not bother you too much, but if you live in a town/village like I do, you can see/experiment this at all times. People will criticize you if you are 40ish and you (especially women) don't have a partner, children, mortgage. What are we, toys?

I've been called crazy for saying that if you are depressed the only person who can take you out of there is yourself. If you want, you can. Yes, it is difficult, but unless you want to get up from the sofa and start doing something, have a shower and stuff, no-one is ever going to be able to help you. You want to be happy?, so wake up! Wake up now!

But this is not what I wanted to say, actually.

Like everyone I have some "non-happy" moments. But sometimes I have awesomely-happy moments. Normally, I just go through life being "happy". What brings me here today is the fact that, sometimes, with just a few words, you can make people change from "yeah, I'm just fine" to "Well, man, I'm great!".

New reader, thank you very much.

Listening to "Le tien, le mien" : Najwa Nimri : "Walkabout".