Happy Now?

I just remembered something.
One of the most weirdest, amazing, brave, mind blowing thing I've ever done.

I was at the hall at my matriculation college. They were having this pep talk, I can't remember for what. They invited this guy from some private college, and he was giving the pep talk, talking about success and shit. I can't remember much of the details. People telling what they want to be, what they want to improve about themselves, all that kind of shit.

He even used me as an example for one of his stories that he was telling. Maybe because I was the only person trying hard enough to be mildly interested. I was in a good mood at the time. Well, I couldn't focus that much, partly because I wasn't that interested and it was too early on a Saturday morning (I think it was Saturday. Well,it was a holiday anyway) to be having a rousing speech on stuff you already know but don't really want to do.

Anyway, we have come to the best part. The guy was talking about how important for us to study well and stuff. He was giving this one example. He used me again as his model. (I know, any more times he used me  and I would have to report child abuse and sexual harassment.) I had my reservations but I went along with it, with a truckload of people focusing on me.

He said to me, if i was just a guy working at a gas station and I saw one of my friends driving a BMW and living the high life, what would I feel?

I said, if my life long dream is to be a station manager or something, I would be just okay with it. Hell, I wouldn't give a flying fuck about it.

The guy, I felt, not entirely satisfied with my answer, rephrased his question. He said, if I was just a pump attendant and saw the same scenario, what would I feel?

All I could think of at that moment was one simple thing.

I said, if I was happy with my life, satisfied with everything I have, then I should feel just.....happy?

I couldn't tell if he was a little ticked off with my answer but didn't give a damn. I told him what I wanted to tell him and I felt amazing. He went on with his talk,which I can't remember much cause I was focusing on what I just blabbered to a few hundred people on a mic.

Is it so ingrained in our minds that happiness requires tons of money and a sweet ride to hold a trophy wife?

Is that what happiness is all about?

I lived through half my life with that ideology embedded in my mind.
To be happy, I have to have a bank worshiping me, enough wealth to drown me, and money to feed three thousand generations to come.
I do admit that we all need money at some point of our lives. We can't really live off love, swag and other non-exchangeable, non-physical stuff.

But to an extent where it is the only way to be happy? The only way to feel remotely satisfied with ourselves?

No. I wanted to state to the guy and everyone in that hall that wealth and success is not the assurance, the guarantee of happiness. The problem with the world nowadays is that when we don't get what we want, we assume that we can never be happy. The end.

That's not the way we are supposed to live. Success comes and goes. Money comes and goes. Even wives and husbands comes and goes. But happiness is to be eternally ours. It's not that we have to be happy all the time. It's that to be happy, all we need is ourselves. That's it. Everything else is just a plus.

A hurricane outside. Your house is basically gone. The car is in the ocean. The bank is calling, asking what time is okay to get your head.
Not entirely a happy situation.
But that does not mean we can't be happy. That doesn't mean we have to just accept things as they are and be miserable for the rest of our lives.

A lot of people have been chasing money all throughout their lives. Most got what they wanted. But asked them, are they happy? Are they satisfied with what they have? The answer is usually no. Yet everything around them have changed for the better. What they don't realize is that one thing has not. Themselves.
That is why happiness should start from inside us.

Everything in life is fleeting. Tether happiness to one thing that doesn't fade in life until we die. Ourselves.

We should learn to be independently happy. Despite wealth, health, relationships. We need to instill a new ideology that these things won't make us any happier if we aren't happy in the first place.

Real-life Noah

Hi.

I haven't been posting anything in a while, ever since I went to Le Matriculation College, but I just got out and....still nothing. Well, I've just been busy, i guess. I guess I should talk a bit on it. It was fun. I met new people. New friends. Learned a lot, and not just about science, maths and shit. About being independent. About who I was, who I am and who I want to be. If you asked me, I'd say that I haven't changed a bit. Maybe that's true deep down. But let's just lie and say I've changed. If we want something, we've got to begin somewhere, and lying is just as good as any place to start.

I'll talk more on that later. Way later. 

Well, I have literally forced myself to sit down and write something here. I've been meaning to, but my life is.....complicated at the moment. Precarious. I'm confused, I guess. We all have our brightest and darkest moments.

I could write anything, but I'll warm up my writing finger for now with something simple and less...complicated than my tangled up emotions.

The Notebook.

Super romantic. Very old school kind of love. Just an epic tale of love wrote by Nicholas Sparks. Naturally, I hate it. Haha. If you haven't read it, shoot both your legs and drag your god damn body to the nearest bookstore and steal one copy. Just go. Now. And read.

Noah. He is just..... him. End of story. You just have to read the book. Optionally, see the movie. Unusually, it's near accurate to the book, just some minor details off here and there.

And.... which leads me to a real, living, breathing Noah. 

My grandfather. 

God, I don't know how he does it.

It all started when my grandmother began to lose her mind. Not literally going crazy. She was slowly dying away. Herself, withering away like a dried husk. Crumbling. Fading. Alzheimer's does that to a person. Sadly, now, even I can't remember her. I try to cling on a memory, anything that relates to her but I just can't. I only seem to know her as someone who lost herself. But at least, deep down, I know she was a person filled with vitality, at least before that horrid disease robbed her of everything she was.

That disease just petrifies me. I hope to God I don't get it. Please. To tell you the truth, some days, I just hate myself. But I never, ever want to forget who I am. I love the good and the bad of me, and to forget who I am is just..... too much. Nowadays, I hate going back to my grandparent's house. Every time I see that woman, the person that cared for my mother before me, lying on that bed, it just breaks my heart.

But, there is just that one thing that I am always at awe at when I do go back there. My grandfather.God, forgive me, but sometimes I don't understand a word he says. I'll be like "Mmmmm, yeah.". Talk about a bad grandchild. I try to understand but he has this accent that really fogs up anything that I can pick up from his speech. 

He was a soldier back then. I've always wanted to know what he did back then, but I never got the guts to do so. Don't get me wrong, he is a nice guy, smiles a lot (though he doesn't have much teeth now). I have never seen him get angry at something or someone, not even at some of his pesky grandchildren. But I sense in him a dormant volcano. Poke enough sticks and you might get the next Vesuvius. I guess I inherited that from him. Thanks Atuk. And I didn't want to stir anything he might not want to be stirred.

But the most important thing that I love the most about him is how he take cares of my grandma. He has help, from his eldest son that lives nearby. But emotionally, God, he is still a soldier. He talks to her, as if she could understand. Sometimes she does, I think. I guess when you lived with someone so long, raising children and going through changes together, language is not a requirement to understand each other. My mom thinks it's romantic that he still talks to her. I do too. 

He is just like Noah in The Notebook. Loving and caring someone that might not even know who you are. And that is just uber romantic and sweet. I hope and pray, with the best intention, that she goes first before him at least. Because there is no one in this world that can take care of her as best as he does.

That kind of love. I just hope I can have one like that one day. And, God willing, I can give to someone worth while as well.