Happiness notes by Ah Q - an incoherent entry

I have always judged a book by its cover. It is really hard to resist the word "happiness" that just hits all my buttons. I think the word also hits the buttons of many others by looking at its position on the NYT bestsellers list. My friend once chastened me that one's fervent external search for happiness will be futile as happiness lies within oneself. She figured I must be down and out to be publicly declaring that I was enjoying Hector and the search for happiness by Francois Lelord. Was I then really feeling low? Maybe, maybe not, all I know that I was questioning and finding more about life.

I am not picking apart statistics or research on happiness, how do you do that to a subject so abstract? I just want to give my take on what I feel after reading the "happiness" books.

I enjoyed Hector and the search for happiness because the journey undertaken by Hector was too whimsical to resist and most importantly, each encounter by Hector tells us how  the characters view life, often from vastly different angles. I could have hardly thought in a certain way if I did not read about it here. In the end, the message I garnered from the story is "action is the way to happiness". Simply speak, "do something! for God's sake!". Hah!

To be frank, The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin is not a better book than Hector and the search for happiness. From the start, as I read, in my mind I had a picture of a rich, highly educated tai-tai with a capable husband, two beautiful kids with having nothing much to worry about, and she found something to worry about and that is, how to make herself happier. (Maybe the people making up the statistics on NYT bestsellers are like her??!) My heart sank, it was an expensive book. Nevertheless, as I tried to wrap my brains around the book, I found snippets of noteworthy quotes and advice which I want to share here.

p67 -

" To be happy, I need to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth."

All of us should be able to identify with this. We enjoy learning, don't we. Of course we try to do it the not-so-hard way.
(An aside, from Man of Steel, I quote: You can only know your true strength by testing your limits.")

And she said again on this page:
p85 -

"You look forward to reaching these destinations, but once you've reached them, they bring emotions other than sheer happiness. And of course, arriving at one goal usually reveals another, yet more challenging goal."

This reveals the complexity of the human mind, we are indeed hard to please. Happiness keeps eluding and we keep pursuing. Ironically the pursuit and daydreams of arrival churns out a sense of wellbeing, if that is not happiness, then I do not know what is!!

On the same page, she brought out a real good quote from Friedrich Nietzsche.

"The end of a melody is not its goal; but nonetheless, if the melody had not reached its end it would not have reached its goal either. A parable."

p147 -

"One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy."

"One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself."

I never thought of volunteerism as a selfless act. In volunteering, the volunteer gains happiness in doing good. In a volunteering interview the social worker asked why I want to volunteer. I replied that I want to do something more meaningful than what I used to do every weekend - like shopping. Shopping is an easy way to feel happy - for a while. On the other hand, helping a child weak in studies get the right maths answer after many many tries and seeing her become amazed with her ability make me ridiculously happy. There are two to share the happiness!

Being happy yourself really means being happy with what you have. That is quite a tall order, I think. I mean, Man are made to be dissatisfied. Did not all inventions sprout out from discontentment of the present?

In summary, to me at the moment, happiness sprouts out from growth and making others happy. But I sense something is missing till I find a soulmate to share, hence, my search is far from over, until my life ends. Now, that is a process I really look forward to. (Morbidly, if we think along these lines, is the goal of life death??!! - but did not we just learn that the end of life is not its goal.....hah?! Cest la vie....)