Posts tagged with "happiness"

The World, Chico

So today I woke up at around eight, checked my dai­ly blogroll, found out that I have $6 in my bank account, cooked some break­fast, went back to bed. I got a call let­ting me know that I’ve been hired for a new job, my high­est pay­ing one to date, end­ing to my four­teen month unem­ploy­ment stretch. Got dressed, bought a bus pass, went to school, ate lunch, skipped the last half of class. On the way home I bought a book, looked for a wrist­band, fin­ished read­ing a chap­ter from my eco­nom­ics text­book. Got anoth­er call, let­ting me know that my appli­ca­tion with Trolley and Wheaties into a beau­ti­ful 16th floor apart­ment has been accept­ed. And here I am, sit­ting in my fur­nished apart­ment next to my cat, watch­ing peo­ple improv char­ac­ters on a GO train.

I start work tomor­row. I’m sched­uled for a table ten­nis marathon with Pat this month. My pork chop defrost­ed in time for din­ner. Things are get­ting even bet­ter.

More than 170 peo­ple were killed today, in a war I know noth­ing about, con­cern­ing things I don’t under­stand, with peo­ple I’ve nev­er met, at a place half the world away.

This is the first time that I’ve ever felt guilty to be hap­py.

The Taste

I feel like speak­ing tonight. I feel like express­ing myself in some way, but can’t focus on what I want to say. I feel like I’m total­ly addict­ed. I feel like shar­ing some­thing that’s com­plete­ly embar­rass­ing, like the face trace trick or the wing chun dream.

I feel like singing. I feel like shout­ing. I feel like every­thing is just right.

I feel like I final­ly have peo­ple I can hang out with. I feel like I’ve final­ly had a mean­ing­ful rela­tion­ship.

I feel like I can dream with­out dis­ap­point­ment. I feel like I can think with­out hurt­ing. I feel like I can admire with­out jeal­ousy.

I feel like every song is the last I’ll ever hear. I feel like I’m final­ly liv­ing.

I feel hap­py.

Quixotic

People who know me know that I gen­er­al­ly tend not to get my hopes up. I nev­er see the point. If I get my hopes up and things work out in my favour, then I would have expect­ed such an out­come, and I become unap­pre­cia­tive. If things don’t work out, then I feel even worse than had noth­ing hap­pened. On the oth­er hand, if I don’t get my hopes up, I’ll feel great when I get my way, or I’ll feel fine when noth­ing works out.

Yet I can’t help but get my hopes up for what the future may hold. Lately, things have been going well in such a way that I feel com­fort­ed. Jonathan has made a great attempt at try­ing to get me a com­put­er relat­ed job with a decent salary. I applied to a beau­ti­ful apart­ment with Nick which, I was told, I should have no trou­ble obtain­ing occu­pan­cy. I will be grad­u­at­ing soon, and free to live my life with a free­dom only matched from the sum­mer days of my child­hood.

But most bright to me seems to be the future with my friends. I’ve met a great bunch of peo­ple, of which I immense­ly enjoy hang­ing out with. They have offered to help me move. They enjoy the same things I do. They are peo­ple I can con­fide in. They have got­ten excit­ed about my ten­an­cy with Nick. Who else do I know is inter­est­ed in my hap­pi­ness? What oth­er friends that I’ve had are so keen in spend­ing time with me?

My friends make the future seem warm and bear­able. Even when I admit to myself the way the future may work out, the fact that I may not get this job and indus­try con­nec­tion, the fact that my rental appli­ca­tion may be denied, I can’t imag­ine any­thing going wrong with these won­der­ful peo­ple. Sometimes I wish that I did­n’t feel this way, that I could keep my mind in check. But I can’t.

And I don’t care.

Playing Emma

At one point in my life, I believed I was like a jester in my pur­suit of mak­ing oth­er peo­ple hap­py. I did­n’t real­ly care how I was doing, the knowl­edge that my friends were well was enough to get me through the day. Nowadays, I think I’ve become more self­ish. There seems to be a dif­fuse feel­ing of non-sat­is­fac­tion.

Have I become more cyn­i­cal?

I expect noth­ing from oth­ers. I still believe that my hap­pi­ness can only be a result of my own actions. Yet it still fills me with a feel­ing of ela­tion to know that I have been able to help some­one else. Perhaps I’m hop­ing that the favour may be returned to me some­day. Realistic would be a bet­ter word.

However, the thought that the peo­ple I care about are hap­py is still enough to sati­ate. I’ll take that as a good thing.

Forget about me.