It is all a matter of perception. , Photo credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto
,Be happy, madam,” said my friend Mohan.
I was taken aback. Happy? How dare he, when I have just spent an hour telling him about my miseries – my family problems; my many health problems that required weekly trips to the hospital for various painful procedures; My age related weaknesses – I am a ‘super senior’ now, in my eighties, and walk with a cane. There is not a single part of my body which is not damaged. And he advises me to “be happy”? Seriously, how dare he? how insensitive. I was looking for a shoulder to cry on and vent my troubles, and all he could say in response was, “Cheer up ma’am”!
After that I was a little flustered for the rest of the evening, but after he left I considered his ‘advice’. One of my ‘diseases’ is chronic insomnia, and as I lay in bed that night, I remembered her suggestion to “be happy”.
Trust me, the more I thought about his advice, the more it made sense, until I was convinced that he was absolutely right. What do I need to be happy, I angrily asked myself, to begin with. Then through the thin wall that separates my bedroom from my neighbor in our apartment block, I heard the cries of the baby next door. The child was born with many disabilities, and I heard the poor mother rocking the infant throughout the night, trying to calm it down, even singing softly to it for a while. I was lying listening to her, and thought: thank God, I don’t have a disabled child.
My other neighbor’s 80-year-old mother-in-law lives with her, and that woman takes out all her frustrations on the poor daughter-in-law, scolding her for every little thing, sometimes even minor things. (“That’s a mother-in-law’s prerogative,” she declared once, too.)
Thank god I don’t have these problems, I thought – so there’s something I can be happy about.
There is a popular saying about a glass half full – one can either rejoice at a glass half full, or lament half empty. One can choose which half to focus on, right?
“I’m glad I have at least half a glass of water,” is one way of looking at it.
But most of us look at what’s missing, and fret over it, and don’t see what one can be “happy” about. If one can do something to fill the empty half, well and good, but if nothing can be done, then we just wallow in the voids we have no control over.
Remember that other saying, “I was upset about having no shoes, until I saw a man who had no feet”? I think this is what Mohan was trying to say when he suggested that I should be “happy”. Count your blessings – I’m glad I have legs to stand on; I am glad that I have a roof over my head, unlike the old man who lives under the flyover with no place to go. I am glad that I have enough to eat and live…
There was a lot to be happy about then…
Education doesn’t teach anyone to be happy – and even the most learned among us can become the most frustrated, angry and sad…
Happiest person I’ve ever seen? A shabbily dressed young boy drives a tractor along the highway, weaving through heavy traffic, singing wistfully to the rhythm the tractor wheels make on the bumpy road; It was hot and dusty, and sweat was dripping down his face but he seemed extremely happy as he made his way to work under the scorching afternoon sun.
Happiness can be found in the most unlikely of places, if we bother to look for it…
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