The Road to Happiness
There are many junctures in life where we face stumbling blocks. When we aspire for something but fail, when we love someone and lose them, when we desire something which is denied to us, when someone we love has shattered our hearts, when an opportunity we chase escapes our grasp.
Sadness is an inevitable reaction when things do not work out the way that we had planned. It can be crippling, it is one of the most painful emotions known to man. No one is immune from its clutches, and no amount of money or material possession in the world can shield us against it.
The ability to experience emotions is a barometer of a person’s humanity. The human heart has the capacity to experience a range of emotions, the stirring of the heart in reaction to an incident which had touched us, is what makes us human. Our hearts respond with gladness and is lifted whenever some happiness enters our lives, the same way that it reels with pain whenever some bitterness taints our lives.
What is our fix for such sadness? It is common, even socially encouraged, for us to drown our sorrows by listening to music, going out for a good time, going for a holiday or splurging on a shopping trip. Whenever some personal disaster occurs, it is common for us to look to our close ones to confide in or to have a shoulder to cry on, and hope for that person to fix whatever is broken in our hearts. And there are other means, altogether more unhealthy, that we use to release all the built up stress of unhappiness. We reach out for a cigarette, drown our sorrows in food and drink, become excessive in our behaviour, pick up an obsessive new hobby, immerse ourselves in work and even indulge in forbidden pleasures.
We experiment with all these solutions in order to fix us, and sometimes we come out on the other side feeling as if our wounds have been salved. But the sadness only disappears temporarily. A quick fix is, by nature, a temporary solution. It is akin to using chewing gum instead of nails to mend broken furniture. The fix is cursory and unstable, and if put under pressure again, the whole thing comes undone and collapses in a miserable heap. This is the cycle that many of us face. We experience a period of distress, solve it by trying to glue our hearts together with some superficial comfort, and when the temporary adhesive wears off, our hearts fall apart again at the easiest of provocations. Our core remains empty and even if the sadness is forgotten for now, remnants of it still haunt our hearts, ready to emerge at the next tragedy.
We look for people and things to fix us, but we do not apply the one permanent fix which can cure us, and fill the misery and numbness in our hearts with contentment and joy.
Chasing the wrong dreams?...
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