The Man Who Wanted to be Happy

This morning, I drove my daughter to school and I didn't feel like going to work nor going back home. So I decided to just drive my car and let my mind drift and wander in the streets of Marrakech. It was just a little past eight and the streets were impossible to take due to all the drivers going to work. So I decided to make a stop at a small coffee-shop, "Rouge Vanille", right in the heart of the new city. I ordered a café-latté and opened a book I've been reading lately named "The Man Who Wanted to Be Happy" by the french author Laurent Gounelle. A novel talking about a man seeking happiness and soul healing power from a wise old man in an Asiatic town.

Happiness is a complicated issue, we know it when we feel it and we often use the term to describe a range of positive emotions, including joy, pride, contentment, and gratitude. But, what is the real definition of happiness? In her 2007 book The How of Happiness, positive psychology researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky elaborates, describing happiness as “the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.”

I personally think that happiness is a sate of mind generated by the superposition of two notions, the reality as lived and the perception of life. If the two match perfectly then we are happy, but the farther they get from each other the sadder we get. We are all affected by our culture in society in our tastes and choices of what we perceive to be good or bad. In western cultures, a good day could be a warm and sunny day since in those countries they rarely see uncovered skies. But, in sub-saharien countries a good day is one of those rare days when it rains since water in those lands is scarce and considered as a blessing from the skies. Furthermore, our perception of a good people is depicted by how they match closely or perfectly the norms dictated by religion and society. We all follow certain guidelines created by our culture; the way people dress, how they organize their lives, what they believe to be a good job and a good salary, fashion, medias are all big factors that shape our perception of a good life. If in reality we fail to follow those rules then we feel incapable to get the happiness wanted and we fall in a Roller coaster towards sadness and depression. Joel Osteen, american preacher, once said: "Every day we have plenty of opportunities to get angry, stressed or offended. But what you're doing when you indulge these negative emotions is giving something outside yourself power over your happiness. You can choose to not let little things upset you."