The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment. ~Doug Larson ****

I’ve been thinking about this word for a while. Just like how the universe wouldn’t get formed if even just one of the physics constant was a little bit different, it always makes me wonder what other life I can have if it didn’t turn up the way it did. Would I be happier now? would I be happier later? or is there even any difference?

Do you often wonder about this?

Happiness of course is whatever you want to define it as. To me … it is a state of which I am satisfied with myself. People keep on saying that happiness is a journey, not a state. But to me it is a state, so be it. I am talking about happiness that is more to just being content. It is not a state when you were happy when you eat your favorite ayam goreng, or when you get pooed by a bird (it’s a lucky sign according to the popular chinese belief), or when you manage to get a decent job. Once you are happy, you will be happy for a while because it is an accumulation of joyful events in your life. That kind of happy. I know I’m not being as clear, but my mind is currently clouded anyway.

It’s easy to define what was happiness in the prehistoric era. The challenges for those times were to avoid being eaten by other animals, and to feed the stomachs. Therefore the moment of living itself brought happiness to The Flintstones. Challenges correlated with happiness. Once culture and civilisation played a part in human’s life, suddenly filling our stomaches required us to get a job. So, we of course had to get a job. We did that, and then we were happy, again. A typical life of someone who lived 1000 years ago would be: born -> got a job -> (maybe procreated because that also made us happy :p) -> held the job for the lifetime -> died. Simple.

Happiness is a need for all of us. The prehistoric people were at the bottom of the pyramid, and Maslow said it is a normal progression to crave for more satisfaction in life when all the lower satisfactions have been reached. At the top of the pyramid, there are self-actualised people. Most of us fall into this category – people who are working toward fulfilling our potential, toward becoming all that we are capable of becoming. But here is the thing: what is it that each one of us are capable of becoming?

I am graduating this year. I have yet to come to terms with it. I won’t have ‘student’ as my occupation anymore very very soon. I won’t be able to pay concession fee anymore (damn), and there are few more tidbits that come with it. The end of uni opens up a big hole about what can I become? Decisions have to be made at the end of the day, regardless of how much I wonder what it would be like if I decide otherwise ((it reminds me of The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost)). Ignorance is bliss and I wish I won’t spend more time thinking about it. Hobos sleeping on the road only worry about whether they can get food and a place to sleep for the night. Why the hell do I need to worry more?

Well I hope I will be able to find my happiness, sometime even in the faraway future, and I hope everyone who have to make similar decisions as what they are capable of will be, because thinking about it too much will make life less enjoyable.

ps. Gargh my last post was two months ago! &#@%#*! Work, recruitment and thesis are really stealing my time away…