Thursday, February 07, 2008

Happiness

What is happiness? It is said that true happiness marks the pinnacle of all achievements, something which all humans work towards, and the end of all desires. Each and everything that we do is done in the name of pursuing happiness – yes, in one way or another, we are all driven towards satisfaction by the things we do, both consciously and subconsciously. We are all victims of causality, for it is the chase of happiness that is the cause of all things that is done.


Happiness is subjective. Are we entitled to the sweat on our brow? “No!” says the man in Washington. “It belongs to me.” “No!” says the man in Moscow. “It belongs to everyone.” “No!” says the man in The Vatican. “It belongs to God.” Just like the saying it takes one to know one, only you can define your own happiness in this world.


Is the world’s richest man also the world’s happiest man? Is he happy because he is the richest person in the world? Or is he unhappy because everyday, he is fretting, worrying and losing sleep over the day when he might lose it all?


To the Ah Beng and Ah Lians, happiness only comes in the form of driving a Mercedes-Benz and wearing a Rolex. To the high school student in Singapore, happiness means getting straight A’s in the exams. To the lama in Tibet, true happiness exists only when he is detached from materialism and earthly temptations.





How would you feel if you were this cat? Would you be living a life which you would rather not live, drenched in all the kurap and the disease which has made you blind and motionless? Or would you be happy knowing that you have survived this long where others would have given up?


Moral of the story: Try your best to let everyday be a happy one and think positive even if you are in a state of deepshit-fuckedup-depression. Seriously :).

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is a nice story.(chuan CHH). Everyone has their own definition for HAPPINESS. How about yours? Answer: My happiness is to succeed in all aspects of my life.

ikanbilis said...

=/

made me realize, how lucky my cat and i are.

thank you.

Anonymous said...

my god...the post of the story touched me...good work...

wchan said...

Hey Hoong, I'm really sorry to be all technical and stuff but studies show that there is a strong relationship between income and happiness. That is, when income increases, so does happiness (http://bp0.blogger.com/_L6VaBfpm8Vw/RrtzHD-PW8I/AAAAAAAAACQ/K1BJBKrrZN4/s320/happiness_against_income.jpg). However, it can also be argued that income only counts for 20% of the variations in happiness. Other factors being such as your colour of skin (US studies show that by being black you are less happy than the average).

Studies also show that happiness is relative (thus the occurrence of the Easterlin Paradox). Therefore, by that logic, it can be assumed that the cat in the picture will actually be super super depressed because it is relatively really really worse off to let's say you and I.

Anyway, technicalities aside, good post :D I get what you mean.