|
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Perez: Happiness from reading
By Joy G. Perez
Sensitivity
WE CAN learn happiness from reading, especially reading human-interest stories that have happy endings. These stories are often remembered. They inspire us, therefore making us happy.
There are a number of bestsellers or even newspaper and magazine articles that are really worth reading. When you start reading them, you don't want to stop but continue reading until the last word.
Through reading, we learn many things. I read a lot and I spend time reading articles of columnists in different dailies and community papers.
Julie Yap Daza is one of my favorite columnists. I also used to watch her TV talk show years back. She has brilliant ideas to share. They are effective whether in print or broadcast media.
Recently in Panorama magazine, she mentioned that a book published many years ago aimed to show Singaporeans how to be happy. It was bestseller as its publishers had hoped.
To the rest of the world, she said, it proved that the people of Southeast Asia's most prosperous state may know how to make oodles of money but they are likely not happy doing it.
She however noted that, "Filipinos on the other hand have little to brag about in the area of prosperity but for all their sufferings in a country high on a disaster-prone scale, they are happier than a lot of other people in the region of the planet."
I like what she said. Our lives after all are worth living. Problems come and go. Disasters may happen. Catastrophes may come without warning. They bring destruction. But in one's life, there is happiness. It is a matter of attitude.
When a negative event happens, a positive event is sure to come. When and what type? It depends. It will just come...you may not even know when it does. You will realize it not instantly, but later.
In a popular TV drama, "Gulong ng Palad, the TV audience waits for the time in the shift of events. But of course, even the soap opera cast of characters must show the audience that people need to work hard and decide for their lives to change for the better. Hard work coupled with luck or fortune would mean great success. Translated literally, the title of the TV soap opera means wheel of fate, but popularly it means wheel of fortune.
Ms. Daza mentioned six guideposts for happiness that was shared by Fr. Orly Sabuay (of the La Sallete Order). The priest as she described him, shared a life of preaching and teaching, an interior life of the spirit and an exterior one ministering to sinners and saints and those in-between.
Let me share with you the six guideposts of happiness with Ms. Daza's words inside the parentheses:
* "Free your heart from hatred." (Hatred sucks, it occupies the space reserved for moments of joy and jubilation, and then you become what you hate.)
* "Free your mind from worry." (Ninety per cent of your worries don't materialize anyway.)
* "Live simply." (It's cheaper, too.)
* "Be true to yourself, be at peace with yourself." (Read Desiderata.)
* "Give more." (So others can receive more. After turning the other cheek once too often, it's time to turn your wallet inside-out.)
* "Expect less." (Buddhism blames desire for unhappiness. Ben Franklin, who was never a Buddhist, advises: Not to expect is not to be disappointed.)
The six rules for happiness, said Ms. Daza, can also be interpreted as the rules for de-stressing. In the modern world, everyone is so busy "de-stressing" that they have forgotten it's not the same as being happy, she added.
(March 30, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor. Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board. Click here. |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
|
