Nash Blog

On this day of Eid, wishing all my wonderful readers happiness and the heartiest thoughts today and throughout the year.

As we all know, this is the time where we exchange greetings with our loved ones and the ones we care for.

Long ago, people used to send greetings cards (I am sure some do, even today). Now, I just love greeting cards, for many reasons, for one, once I receive the card, I imagine what that person has gone through for the card to reach me. Lets walk through the steps: 1. He must have gone to a stationary shop, selected a card especially for me. 2. Gone home, sat down and thought what to write, so I know those words are meant for me. 3. Gone to the post office and mail the card. And 4, my fav, the card was written in a person's own handwriting, now thats what makes it special, nothing tops that. The thing is, a lot of people stopped sending cards, they found you have to write so many cards, takes up a lot of time, plus the cards were getting costly, and yes, the postal charges are quite high, so cards became things of the past.

Then came emails, you just select your contacts, write a message once, press send, its gone in seconds. It later turned out, some people stopped using their emails, bec of too many forwards and junk mails. Also, during holidays people dont check their emails, so you get greetings after holiday, too bad eh?

What now? Well, its the little beast called SMS. With SMS, you wait until the first person sends you a msg, then forward it to everyone on your list except the first person. Then wait a few mins for someone else to send, and forward to the first victim. Now whats so bad about that. Nothing bad at all. Did anyone ever wonder where the first person got his sms from? I always do.

The thing is, all we do is forward some well written piece to the contacts list. OK, it makes me happy to receive the well written note, but where is the personal touch, for me, I am a very sentimental person. I love to see personal touch in there, but I guess those days are gone.

I wonder what is next...

A man went to a shrink to complain that he was not happy, always feeeling depressed, not a happy moment in his life,

he was on the brink of suicide. After a long session with lots of convincing and lots of give and take, the shrink

finally said, as a first suggestion, why dont you go out a lot, for example, why dont you go to fifth ave, there is a

clown who performs there, the guy is so funny, there is always large crowds, and this will help ease your worry. So

the patient goes: But doctor, you dont understant, I am that clown.

Most of us are not able to define what happiness is. Just because someone smiles, it doesn't mean they are actually

happy. What about happiness on a child's face when receiving her new toy, or a kiss from her mom, now thats

priceless.

So what actually makes us happy? Is it the money? Then why do we see rich people get into depression? Is it the fame?

Well, I am sure you have heard of the number of holywood icons with all these manic depressions. Is it the success?

Japan, the most successul nations, has one of the highest suicide rate. How about being in love, ask any lover and

they will tell you how love has tortured them. Marriage, well, if marriage makes us happy there wont be divorces.

Most of us work so hard to find happiness without realising what we are going through can only make us miserables. In

the west, it is quite the norm for a person to have his/her own fitness trainer, doctor, lawyer, and yes, a personal

shrink. In order to afford one, you have to be working yourself day in, day out.

"I love to walk in the rain, that way nobody can see my teardrops", Charlie Chaplin, who made millions laugh with his

silent movies was the most depressed person of his time.

The way I look at it, we can be happy by learning to appreciate little things in life. By being satisfied on what we

do, by competing with ourselves and cooperating with others. Life is like crossing the ocean, at times you get strong

winds, so you fight hard to survive, at other times its smooth sailing, time to enjoy.

My definition of happiness is about managing expectation. So we feel happy when expectation meets reality. When these two do not match, thats where problems start to occur. So a wife who expects so much from her husband, and in reality gets less, starts losing confidence in marriage, because that is not the marriage vows she got into the first place. So, we always feel contented when our expectations are met. We will feel more contented if we know how to manage our expectation, and not make them high, for example.