Be Happy

A woman asked her middle-aged friend. You have a body of an 18yr old. There is hardly any line on your face. What's your secret?

Others in the group were expecting the usual tirade of balanced diet, enough sleep, exercise, avoid the sun, yada yada yada. Instead, she answered:

Be happy. Look for happiness. Don't wait for it to come to you. And happiness doesn't only come packaged in a man. Its everywhere and anywhere. You just need to be sensitive to your surroundings and the people in it. Now, even if those don't keep you trim, at least you are happy!!

Decisions...decisions...

Three years on…

A friend spoke of his current predicament of being stuck between a rock and a hard place. It was 3 years since I wrote that piece and now I shared it with him. Maybe it helps, maybe it doesn’t. From recent lessons, I have learned that some people actually find useful the experiences that I share with them. So I have decided to share. His choice is to use or discard.

We are often stuck with the worry of making the wrong decisions. But is there really ever a wrong decision? For that matter, is there really ever a right decision? We make our choices based on information we know or what we think we know. These may be logical, and may also be emotional. What do we know of its consequences when there are so many variables present surrounding each decision?

A reasonable person does not make decisions with intent to hurt others.

A reasonable person does not knowingly make decisions which would make him/her worse off.

A reasonable person would not knowingly make decisions which would put people he cares for in disadvantageous position.

And we all think that we are reasonable people.

But even with the best of intentions, we do hurt others. We do become worse off from time to time. We do put our loved ones in disadvantageous positions. Does that mean we made bad decisions?

At other times, consequences of our decisions are that we give joy to ourselves and others. We help ease another’s burden. We get our loved ones overcome obstacles. Do those mean that we made good decisions?

Not so! They are merely decisions. Period. Their outcomes may be partially within our power to determine. But while we may think that we are more or less in control, there are millions other decisions being made at the same time by others totally (or rather, seemingly) unconnected to us which affect the outcome of ours.

It’s ok to pat ourselves in the back for happy outcomes as it makes us feel good.  But we must stop beating up ourselves for making ‘wrong’ decisions. In the larger scheme of things, we are all powerless anyway.

Goody Two-Shoes

I’m not the complaining type. Honest, I’m not. But the tea lady was late this afternoon. She normally comes around 3pm to deliver afternoon tea to my desk. She came well past 4pm instead. And I needed to leave already. The tea was still too hot to drink even after allowing 10 more minutes, and I didn’t want to burn my tongue. I couldn’t wait anymore so I left the steaming cup of tea on my desk.

All the way home, I felt guilty. And I felt ridiculous too. It’s ridiculous to feel guilty for not finishing my cup of tea. But I couldn’t help it. What is wrong with me? It’s just a cup of tea! But I felt bad for wasting the water, the electricity that heated it, the tea, the sugar and the effort of the sweet lady.

Is this what some people meant when they say I am a nice person? Because I always care for how others feel? But they got it all wrong. I don’t always care for how others feel. I am selfish. I consider myself the most important person in the world, bar none. But people don’t know that. They think I’m just joking when I say that.

Is this also what some people meant when they say that I am righteous? Because I feel guilty for the slightest things?  But they got it all wrong. Of course I feel guilty - because I do the wrong things all the time. But I don’t go around telling the world that I do the wrong things all the time.

The questions that need answering are, am I righteous or self-righteous? Am I a snob or reverse-snob? Or, am I simply a miss goody two-shoes, full of myself?

Gosh, I need a shrink!!