We have all heard our versions of the fact that no one is completely happy…but it still doesn’t stop us from being jealous when we see someone stepping out of his Benz, when we see a handsome hunk on her arm, when we see someone having a great time with family…most of us wonder …he is so happy…why cant I be so? To be honest…I am consistently thinking along these lines – she has an awesome figure, he has wonderful family, they have amazing kids, she has achieved such fast career growth – and keep wondering why I can’t I have that life. So when I got in touch with a friend recently from my post grad days I thought now I will have more things that I think I have missed. Little did I know that I will come back with a completely different perspective.
Let me give you a brief background on her – she is married to a good looking guy, has 2 kids (a daughter & a son), lives in a million dollar house, drives a BMW and has a very secure job – a script fit for a modern-day fairy tale! Wait, here is other side of the coin – she has to cook, look after 2 kids, manage house alone as her husband travels 4 days a week and all this while having a full time job. She has no personal life, she can’t do what she wants, can’t even go out alone as hubby dear doesn’t like to be left alone with kids. He dictates pretty much everything – what she should wear, where she should go, what jobs she should apply for and so on…
So here I was dreading a visit to her place – lest the list of things I feel miserable about gets longer and there she was all green-eyed because I am leading a "free" lifestyle - free of husband, free of kids, free of house mortgage and doing whatever I feel like without having to answer anyone. This visit gave me a completely fresh thing to feel miserable about – is anyone really happy? No..no…I am too selfish to think along those lines – real issue is if no one is really happy…then what are my chances of feeling so?
And while I was writing this post…someone I was on chat with asked me why I don’t look happy in my pictures, why do my posts exude sadness? And my answer was “Happiness is subjective and relative.” (I know someone who will retort – “Peace is absolute…strive for that instead”. Guess I will reserve that conversation for some other time). I know its an old adage but for the first time I believe that it is true - a revelation that I am sure will bring about a big change in my life.
Yes happiness is relative…I was feeling very lonely and sad on Friday…wondering what am I doing here alone in this foreign land…and Sunday night when someone asked me when I am heading back home, I didn’t give my usual response (which was “hope that I will be back soon”). I suddenly wasn’t feeling sad or lonely – I was feeling good that I can afford to live my life the way I want - be away from home, spend $250 on air ticket alone to meet someone for just 2 days, sit at the bar as long as I want, roam around the malls and buy what I want….the list is endless. The fact, that it needed someone else’s perspective to put my "so called" loneliness in this light, makes me say that Happiness is subjective and relative.I sincerely wish that a day will come when we will learn to view our lives from an angle that will make grass green this side of the fence too - Amen!
1 comment:
The question you have to ask is - is green good? Or is brown? Green grass is useless as a fuel, brown is useless as fodder. The question you have to ask is not which side the grass is green, the question is - what is the colour of grass on my side of the fence and what is the colur of grass I really need?
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