A Different Perspective on Happiness

My dear friend,

Have you ever, at any time, had the feeling that life is bad, real bad, and you wish you were in another situation? You find life makes things difficult for you, Read the following story... it may change your views about life ¦)

After a conversation with one of my friends, he told me that despite
having two jobs, he brings home barely above $1K per month, but is happy as
he is. I wonder how he can be as happy as he is considering he has to
skimp his life with the low pay to support a pair of old parents, in-laws, a wife, two daughters and the many bills of a household.



He explained that it was all because of one incident that he saw in India a few years ago, at a time when he was eally feeling low, touring India after a major setback.

He recalled that night in front of his very eyes: he saw an Indian mother cut off her child's right hand with a chopper. The helplessness in the mother's eyes, the scream of pain fron the innocent 4-year-old child kept haunting him until today.

You may ask why the mother did so; had the child been naughty, was the child's hand infected?? No, it was done for two simple words- - -FOR BEGGING!

The desperate mother deliberately caused the child to be handicapped so that the child could go out to the streets to beg.

Taken aback by the scene, he dropped a piece of bread he was eating half-way and almost instantly, a flock of five or so children dashed towards this small piece of bread, already dirtied with sand, wiping off grains of sand before biting - the natural reaction of a hunger-stricken person.



Stricken by the events, he instructed his guide to drive him to the nearest bakery. He arrived at two bakeries and bought every single loaf of bread he found. The owner was 'dumbfounded' at his good fortune. He spent less than $100 for about 400 loaves of bread (this is less than $0.25 per loaf!) and spent another $100 to get daily necessities.

Off he went in the truck full of bread to the streets. As he distributed the bread and necessities to the children (mostly handicapped) and a few adults, he received cheers and bows from these unfortunate beings. For the first time in his life he wondered how people can give up their dignity for a loaf of bread which costs less than $0.25.

He began to tell himself how fortunate he is; how fortunate he is to have a complete body, a job, a family, a chance to complain about what food
is nice and isn't, a chance to be clothed, and have the many things that these people in front of him are deprived of.

Now I begin to think and feel it too! Is my life bad? Perhaps not, I should not feel bad at all... What about you? Maybe the next time you think you are, think about the child who lost one hand to beg on the streets.



The following are trite expressions but ring with truth, nonetheless.

"Contentment is not the fulfilment of what you want; it is the realization of how much you already have."

"When the door of happiness closes, another opens, but often times we look so long at the closed door that we don't see the one which has been opened for us."

"It's true that we don't know what we've got until we lose it, but it's also true that we don't know what we've been missing until it arrives."

"The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way."

"The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past, you can't go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches."

I share this message to those people who mean something to me, to those who have touched my life in one way or another, to those who make me smile when I really need it, to those who make me see the brighter side of things when I'm really down, to those who I want to let know that I appreciate their friendship.




"Kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly, and forgive quickly. Life is too short to be anything but happy!"