Cure for Mondays
So I quoted one of my favorite writers, Franz Kafka, and went intelligibly about and posted: “Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.”
I left the computer and made myself some coffee, watched the sunrise, and felt good about myself. I went back about an hour later and saw what was on my computer screen and yelped, “Who the hell is Sancho Panza?!”
Then age happens and it somehow manages to knock some sense into you. Suddenly, the pressure of how other people perceive you is not there anymore. The desire to become popular (no matter what the cost) is a silly thing from when you were 20-something. You’re happy for the success of others, and you feel genuinely blissful even at the knowledge of other people’s fat bank accounts. Now you know better realizing (or accepting) that success is a subjective thing to define; and the one who has no cent to his or her name but enjoys the luxury of an eight-hour restful sleep every night may be just as successful as the high-earner who is publicly flaunting his or her itinerary. The former is sometimes called inner peace.
Happiness – it’s a crazy thing, really. It can be temporary like a status message in social networks; misused like the word “epic”; and abused like my coffeemaker. You never argue with a person who insists that his life is a synonym for “happy” even if his eyes say the complete opposite because you don’t own the word “pretense”, which means anyone is allowed to practice it as long as it pleases them.
So they say. I like the sound of that and that has been my life theme in the last few years. It doesn’t come easy though and you just don’t wake up to think that happiness can be clicked and “liked’ the way you do a fan page. Happiness is an everyday challenge. In my case, I hired “happiness” by the hour so I can pounce and work on it in small scales.
When the big 36 came flashing right before my eyes, I quickly reviewed my life because I had to make a quick decision whether to let pre-midlife crisis, or any other kind of psychological and emotional crisis, in. It was a rather easy decision.
I then looked at the enormous virtual screen inside my head, pointed the cursor at “crisis” and clicked “unfriend”.
Read first part here: Unfriend Life Crisis
It is typical for people to blurt out sayings – or post them, as we call it in this time and age of social networking. I read whatever comes up on my page and I’m glad how it has become easier for people to have a “voice”. Sometimes though, I can’t help but think if people post life quotes because they sincerely believe in them and if they actually live by them, or if the conveniences that technology brings sort of push people to snort inspiration by copy-pasting life quotes. One day I woke up and suddenly thought Tuesday was a good day to mimic a boffin. My hormones are a bit playful so it’s always easy for me to blame them when I get into these strange moods.
So I quoted one of my favorite writers, Franz Kafka, and went intelligibly about and posted: “Don Quixote's misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.”
I left the computer and made myself some coffee, watched the sunrise, and felt good about myself. I went back about an hour later and saw what was on my computer screen and yelped, “Who the hell is Sancho Panza?!”
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And so I wanted to be perceived as someone who knows more than the average person. And so I wanted to feel good. And so I wanted to be seen as one having no worries. And so I wanted to deceive myself. What a shame.Then age happens and it somehow manages to knock some sense into you. Suddenly, the pressure of how other people perceive you is not there anymore. The desire to become popular (no matter what the cost) is a silly thing from when you were 20-something. You’re happy for the success of others, and you feel genuinely blissful even at the knowledge of other people’s fat bank accounts. Now you know better realizing (or accepting) that success is a subjective thing to define; and the one who has no cent to his or her name but enjoys the luxury of an eight-hour restful sleep every night may be just as successful as the high-earner who is publicly flaunting his or her itinerary. The former is sometimes called inner peace.
Happiness – it’s a crazy thing, really. It can be temporary like a status message in social networks; misused like the word “epic”; and abused like my coffeemaker. You never argue with a person who insists that his life is a synonym for “happy” even if his eyes say the complete opposite because you don’t own the word “pretense”, which means anyone is allowed to practice it as long as it pleases them.
happiness is a choice
So they say. I like the sound of that and that has been my life theme in the last few years. It doesn’t come easy though and you just don’t wake up to think that happiness can be clicked and “liked’ the way you do a fan page. Happiness is an everyday challenge. In my case, I hired “happiness” by the hour so I can pounce and work on it in small scales.
Unfriend
If happiness is a choice, why not choose it? I asked myself that and it got me here. I thought, if somebody paid me to find ways to make myself happy everyday, I’d work hard for it because it’s human instinct to work hard for a reward. To achieve that, I had to employ allies. So I did. My bestfriend and I moved in together, and since then he’s been paying me to be happy. He pays me everyday with something that I can’t keep in the bank. He’s even paid me two beautiful little people called our children, now employed as my newest allies.When the big 36 came flashing right before my eyes, I quickly reviewed my life because I had to make a quick decision whether to let pre-midlife crisis, or any other kind of psychological and emotional crisis, in. It was a rather easy decision.
I then looked at the enormous virtual screen inside my head, pointed the cursor at “crisis” and clicked “unfriend”.
Read first part here: Unfriend Life Crisis
