3 Secrets to Happiness

Happiness! Don’t we all want to seize it and feel it in our hearts every single day? Then how do we get it? And, equally important: how do we keep it when we have such limited control over our own lives?
My first suggestion is to accept the fact that nobody else was born to make you happy then do everything it takes to create that happiness you and you alone long for and deserve. So turn off your (ridiculous) expectations from others and take charge of it.
The second one is to know from the start that one’s happiness cannot be built on suffering or misery … Consequently, think twice before taking any steps towards your bliss … and ask yourself this question:
”Will it ever become someone else’s grief? ” and, if the answer is “yes”, you must avoid this deceiving path ‘cause sadness really works like a merciless catching disease whose “zero patient” never gets an immunity. On the contrary, he/she remains the most vulnerable… to unbearable pain through shame, remorse and guilt...
Last but not least, however, and the best one, which I’m selfless enough to share with you, is to remain best friends with your past. My advice is to use your own strengths, intuition and opportunities to design and generate a present - beautiful and positive enough - to turn into happy memories when it gets older… Just like Hansel and Gretel, I always leave a trail of” white pebbles “or “bread crumbs” for me to follow when I feel abandoned by the contemporary (world) … On “rainy” days, with disappointments and despair knocking at your door, one is never sad and alone if they have saved enough memories to live on…

Instead of a PS a short warning to make sure you will be both happy and safe: there is only one life(time), one heart for each of us…and no guarantees …so why act like you have your heart insured? Take no risks, my dear ones, only precautions :)…

Rules are Friends

Some say that “rules are made to be broken”. I believe that they are meant to be understood then followed if we want to prevent ourselves from suffering or hurt the significant others in our lives. To begin with, I am not here to discuss the importance of official laws whose breaking usually leads to a form of legal punishment, instead I will be analyzing the more optional ones, the kind an individual can choose whether to follow or not... Just like many others, I’ve always wondered if there would be more or fewer law abiding citizens on this planet but for the fear of penalties and sentences…
On the one hand, even when they seem insignificant, absurd or even useless, even when nobody around us seems to be obeying them anymore,the unwritten rules, good manners, social conventions and (moral) codes of conduct exist because they simply embody the right thing to do, almost everything it takes to avoid hurting people’s feelings (ours included), making social mistakes, taking unnecessary risks… They represent - without a doubt - a kind of shared human experience - its most valuable wisdom if you ask me - tested and (ap)proved for ages - guiding our present and future choices based on the past lessons even when we were not there when they were taught and we have only inherited their essential conclusions.
On the other hand, I believe that we question and doubt tradition too much and this (modern and fashionable) attitude is harmful. Why can't we just accept the fact that “prevention is better than cure” (since learning the hard way is neither a pleasant nor an effective educational strategy and it belongs to the Middle Ages)? Additionally, we should admit that everyone’s actions and behavior are equally important therefore any protocol has to be observed by all the parties if all of us are to be happy.
Actually, though their absence does not mean chaos or anarchy, just like our guardian angels, rules exist to protect us, to make our lives better, safer, easier… and the longer we refuse to see this, the sadder our world will be. Let’s take punctuality and the act of promising... The dictionary states that being punctual implies “ a strict observance in keeping engagements” and a promise refers to ” a declaration or assurance that one will do a particular thing or guarantees that a particular thing will happen”. Of course, we have all been late and/or unable to keep our word quite a few times since we were born, haven’t we? However, we tend to forget that and remember only the times when someone else kept us waiting or broke their commitment to us and, fortunately, there are no jails or prisons for these offences … but stealing one’s time or ruining one’s plans and dreams sound like serious crimes, don’t they?
In that case, don’t you think that what we all need may be a deeper understanding of rules? And perhaps a friendlier , more grateful attitude towards them from now on…