What do you live
for?
A colleague gave me a book for Christmas, "The
Happiness Project". I flipped through a few pages and decided I am
interested to finish it. Just a few leaves through Chapter One, though, I grew
anxious.
I am a generally happy person. No brainer, I am simply,
easily happy. This book, however, tackles happiness as if it's rocket science.
It talks about pursuing happiness, being more conscious of
the things that make us happy, and the other theories and sciences of everyday
happiness.
Questions bombarded my mediocre mind: "Am I just happy
because I was born with happy genes? Is my happy disposition just a by-product
of my hormones? What is it that really makes me happy?"
I plunged into a philosophical discourse with myself - which
proved to be a bad idea. It only bore more questions. This has to be a proper
conversation with another person
Fortunately, a lovely mind shared his simplistic life
thoughts that enlightened me. Along the sense-ridden conversation popped,
"What do you live for?"
On a scale of 1 to ... Calculus, that question merits a
level of "Calculus". That has got to be one of the hardest questions
I ever had to answer!
I don't know. In truth, I was relieved that I had no answer
because it meant something healthy.
Had I been asked the same question last year or a few years
back, I would have answered differently. Around three years ago, I thought
I found my purpose for living - build a happy family with a loved one. Well,
that ship has sailed. I decided to stay on the port (i.e. and the ship left me
as well - whatever). Nonetheless, I have been differently happy since then.
Today, not being able to answer "What do you live
for?" is a beautiful blessing. It means opportunities to unravel
the world, know myself further, and all those profound idiosyncrasies. It has
an underlying adventure to it! Most of all, not having a ready answer to that
question means I have cleanly let go of what I really should be letting go of.
"The Happiness Project" is not a good self-help
book about the much-coveted "happiness". Yet, it did good in moving
me to re-think many facets of my life.
So ... let me open 2013 with a question, "What do
you live for?". Cheers to an excellent year ahead! :)
