Only You Know the Answer

Sometimes the easiest, simplest question, which did not require any reading would be the hardest question of all. It became THE million dollar question.

Today, during the sleepover gathering for the Catholic Undergraduate Society at FM house, I was struck by the question asked by Claire to Helen for the snake and ladder game. It was a very simple question, but only a few can answer it honestly and be truly confident to answer it, at least in my case.

The question is not about "Who's the love of your life", but it sounded like this:

"When was the happiest moment of your life?"

It was really simple and direct, but it's hard to determine when it was, either because you have too many happy moments to choose from or it was because you never had a perfect joyous moment in your life. There could be some flaws here and there which flawed your happiest moment.

In my case, honestly, so far during these past few years, I didn't experience one perfect happy moment. Why? How do I determine this?

It's because I still felt the insecurity or there's something missing whenever I am involved in a certain situation. In my own definition of happiness, it's just not about smiling or laughing, or enjoying a moment. Perhaps, enjoying a moment could carry the meaning of happy, but not THE happiest moment. As Claire had stated during the gathering, she described the happiest moment of your life as the flawless moment, there's NOTHING which could annoy or upset you at that very moment, which you could described as rainbow moment.

Though it was Helen who was required to answer the question, I was in my deep thought, trying to recall my own happiest moment. All I could think of was my childhood. During the simplest, most uncomplicated moments of my life. An ice cream could make my day. But now, it takes a lot more than that to make me feel blissful in and out. I guess as we grew older, we needed something abstract more than something concrete as it won't last forever.

When I tried to recall my adult life, I couldn't really determine when I am happy or not. There were times when I pretended to be happy just to erase my sadness, or not to worry my family and friends, and there were times when I am happy but only after a long set of worriness and fatigues. It was like I had to pay a very high price before I get to enjoy. [For example, it's like you had to pay for the roller coaster ride before you can take a ride on them.] In short, sometimes, I too became confused whether I was truly happy or pretended to be happy during certain moments because I was falling into this make-believe so-called happy moments.

On the other hand, it's easier to determine when I am sad than happy cause nobody would want to pretend to be sad but we always tried our best to look happy even though when we were not.

But as I think back, the way to make yourself happy is to just live life simply. Desiring too much and expecting too much out of lives can lead to lots of disappoinments if your desires couldn't be fulfilled.

And to determine the moment when you are really happy, it's the moment when you can't help smiling widely until you cry because you are so touched by the happiness and also because you regret that the moment won't last forever.

And I hope that everyone can find their answers to this million dollar question.