Absolute happiness

• You mean you’re happy?
• Wait, wait! You twisted your eyes and you look at me frustrated, so now I’m embarrassed to tell you that I am! Ask me nicely, without frustration!
• Okey, do you really feel happy?
• Look, not necessarily every second of your life. But if we take my whole life 100% of the time, about 70% of time I feel happy.
• Um, that’s okay.
• But you look at me in disbelief?
• Yes!
• Why?
• – Well, I doubt your percentage.
• The percentage is flat rate and ad hock, because I don’t really know the exact answer. I don’t remember ever thinking about how happy or unhappy I was. I just don’t think about it.
• I think a lot about my luck. It bothers me!
• Feeling unhappy?
• Well, I don’t know … yes … maybe.
• What makes you unhappy?
• Lot.
• Define it!
• I can’t just define it. For example, you don’t like ironing, and you iron all your life and say you’re happy.
• I don’t like ironing, but I feel happiness when I iron everything. I get lucky when I lie down on my bedding or when I put on my shirt. That feeling is important to me and makes me happy. I wouldn’t go to work every day, but I need money to buy something that will make me happy.
• But money does not bring happiness!
• Right?! You see, it makes me happy! I brought you a flower today, which I bought with money. I was happy when I was buying it because I knew you would cheer when I brought it to you. Did I cheer you up?
• You did!
• I used up gas, bought a flower, you made us coffee, we sit in chairs, it’s warm in the house…. that’s all the money!
• Yes, but does happiness come down to material things?
• I don’t know … it looks like the two of us look at happiness differently. I’m not inclined to look my happiness in the teeth! I’m good with all of them! Small, big, sweet, instant, ground, deep, superficial…. I don’t choose much! My life minutes consist of sadness, joy, anger, mistake, tears, laughter, silence, sun, rain, nervousness, depression, fear, courage…. I feel it every day.
• So how do you say you’re happy?
• Because I feel good with it all of that!

The conversation lasted, and both of us were quite puzzled by it.

I felt like I needed to justify my happiness somehow or I would sound insincere. She knows me well! We’re close! She knows my sorrows, anxieties, fears, sufferings, some of my insolence, life’s losses, frustrations…. but I claim that most of the time I feel happy?!

I lost some important and beloved people to me and that will forever make me sad and angry, but I did get some new little people who are the source of great happiness.

A lot of ugly and unjust things happened in my life, but I got over it. Some harder, some easier, but I did! They have taught me that I can and do, and that makes me happy.

I don’t like to clean, but I do like order. The order makes me satisfied and happy! That is why it is not difficult for me to tidy up, wash, scrub, arrange, and then place on the table a clean tablecloth, a vase of flowers, serve coffee in a cup I love, and eat a cake I made myself. I am then just happy!

When I hear an alarm clock in the morning, I’m unhappy!

In a minute, I wink in the mirror and laugh. For 10 minutes I was angry that there was fog outside, but after that I was cheered to find chewing gum in my bag.

After a hundred more times a day I laugh and grieve, angry and cheerful, freeze and sweat, stumble upon something or skip smoothly! I don’t want all that nightmare, but I know I need one. That is life!

My life!

• When it falls – I push!
• When it gets wet – I dry it!
• When it’s too hot – I chill!
• When it’s too cold – I warm up!

I never stopped and asked myself:

• Marta, are you happy?

Because most of the time I feel the answer inside.