“Happiness dwells in your small world not in that big one where you may lose yourself.”
Fernanda Mello
Happiness takes on many shapes and appearances. There are big and small happinesses, gentle and overwhelming ones. Many consider happiness to be life’s ultimate goal — and also believe that everyone has a right to it.
The happinesses of this world may live in luxurious homes or humble shacks — or sometimes, have no home at all. They walk on foot, take the bus, squeeze into crowded trains or ride in private jets. They may wear elegant clothes or simple rags, dine well or make do with just a piece of bread.
Yet all these happinesses are essentially and absolutely the same, regardless of any social or economic status.
Happiness often walks hand in hand with different companions — a challenging job, a happy marriage, fame or power. Some say happiness has a special fondness for money, though many insist that this is not true.
Happiness tends to be fleeting and lasts only as long as the reasons for its existence remain. When money runs out, jobs are lost, fame or love vanish, happiness quickly grows sad. Happiness that once rode in a luxury car becomes completely miserable when forced to take the bus.
Eventually lasting happiness encounters the powerful adversary of routine which leads to boredom and is worn down. Thus, happiness is never fully content and longs for something more, for grandeur and sophistication.
Happiness likes to travel with its sisters, sorrow and disappointment with whom it shares the essence of what is transient and perishable. Whirling through our lives weaving illusions and disillusions and building castles of sand that are, destined to fail from the very start.
Man follows winding roads with the highs and lows of happiness and sadness — until a moment of saturation arrives, and begins to wonder whether a true and lasting Happiness might exist, one that relies not on external conditions, but is full and complete in and of itself.
When yearning for this rare Happiness that may appear as a pre-memory or an inner voice, there is an invitation to quiet the storm of thoughts and desires and to connect with the deepest essence. Then, in the very heart’s core, one finds the home of this true and singular Happiness that will never be abandoned.
