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Monday, September 20, 2004
Best thing in life is free
By Orlando P. Carvajal
Uncut gems
We all have our share of bad days when we fuss and fume that things are not going our way. Most of the time, the issues are quite minor like when the soup is cold or the food is too salty or not salty enough. In a few cases, the issues are major like when a father fumes over his daughter’s choice of a boyfriend.
Whatever the issue, major or minor, the unhappiness comes from feeling cheated or treated by life unfairly.
It is not so much the event or the situation as our attitude towards it that causes unhappiness in us. Someone, therefore, who wants everything his way is going to be very unhappy in life. We simply cannot have things our way each time and all the time. That is against the natural flow of things. Hence, it is really our stupid attitude of wanting everything to go our way that is the cause of our unhappiness. Things will always happen the way they happen in nature.
There are rainy days and sunny days. There are many nice people but there are also a good number of not-so-nice, even nasty people.
Life flows according to a fixed pattern like the seasons of the year. Everything in life follows inexorable laws and no amount of fretting and even fuming can make life follow our personal rules or whims. If, therefore, we want to be happy, we have to develop an attitude of openness to life’s flow. This attitude, of course, is not something you have to pay mega-bucks for. It is free because all we have to do is decide to adopt it.
Money and material possessions at best can only make like easy, comfortable, pleasurable. Money and possession cannot produce true happiness. True happiness can only come from the right attitude towards living in this planet.
Happiness, therefore, is a decision we make about our approach to living. Happiness is a frame of mind. We do not need to become unhappy when things are not going our way. If we become unhappy when things go wrong, it is not life’s fault since life is simply doing its things, so to speak. If we become unhappy, it is really because we choose to be unhappy. It could be that we choose not to accept things we are not in a position to influence. It could also be that we choose not to accept the consequence of our own failure or inadequacy or even of our own best effort. After all, things can go wrong even after we have given it our best. Either way, it is our choice of which attitude to take that determines if we are going to be happy or not.
Hence, the best thing to have in life is the right attitude because this is really about the only thing we have that is within our control. If we want our happiness to be within our control we must anchor it on something that is also within our control. To have an attitude problem, as we say, is to walk away from happiness. This is a pity since a good attitude is free. All we have to do is decide to have it.
(September 20, 2004 issue)
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