Closing Pandora's Box

“Have you ever had that orange coloured fruit which is really juicy and sweet but after a few seconds it really dries up your mouth and makes it seem like there’s cobwebs growing in there?” I asked the two sitting next to me.

The thinking look came onto the General’s face, "Hmmm…”

“Are you talking about tangerines?” asked Dum.

“Noooo. Tangerines don’t give you oral cobwebs. I don’t know what it’s called.” I replied. “Wait let me google it.”

“I think I know what you might be talking about,” said Dum with his distinctive enlightened ‘oh’ look.

Googling ‘What fruit dries your mouth?’ came up with a yahoo answers page link. “According to this, it’s called a persimmon,” I informed the others.

“Suck this 12 inch baby dry!” shouted Dum randomly, pointing in between his legs. Oh dear, here comes the guy talk.

Which other thing is made to a 12 inch size? “Bloody hell man, that’s the size of a normal 30 cm ruler!” I exclaimed rolling my eyes.

“It would be okay if it was that size when standing up. Otherwise all that blood…” added the General.

“It’d make you faint. Imagine that, you see some one really hot  and just swoon because of all that blood being directed away from the brain.” I said.

“Haha! Gives a whole new meaning to how long can you last,” said Dum.

“But you know, it’s not like we’re 12 any more when it used to randomly just pop up. I think he’d have a bit of self control now… I hope,” General said giving Dum a scrutinising look.

“All you need now is that wooden stump thing that pirates have and you’ll officially have yourself a third leg!” I said laughing.

*****

“Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.” – Thoreau. (sent to me by bubblegum)

What is happiness? Why is that when we are happy things are easy to deal with and it all fits into place? But when sorrow is upon us, we can’t wait for it to end. I attempted to answer that question in one of the parts of ‘The Story’ and so would like to shift the focus somewhere else. What do you do when happiness seems to have left your life?

I’d like to present to you another quote which was said to me by a good friend of mine while we were discussing this issue of happiness a week or so ago:

“There are some things in life that don’t come running to you. You gorra get up off your stinkin’ sofa and go get ‘em” – RP.

At first glance it may seem that the two quotes above are contradictory in the message they give. The first tells us that we should wait patiently for happiness to come to us whereas the latter seems to imply that happiness is something that we have to go and actively find ourselves. I agree with both and think you can employ both methods without any conflict. They are, I believe, two different stages of the same process, one coming before the other.

If you want gold for example, you must first seek where gold is. There’s no point looking for it in the kitchen cupboards or in a chemist shop and if you were to do so, you’d never find it. It’s the same with happiness I think. If a person finds themselves bereft of happiness but does nothing but sit at home thinking about the injustices of life and the bad things that have happened to them, their negativity will lead to depression and or other psychological problems. The butterfly of happiness isn’t everywhere, especially in those places that are bound to bring back tear-jerking memories or feelings of anger and hate. First you have to find where happiness is, and then you can wait patiently for it to come to you.

Just before starting this post, I asked a friend of mine of their views on this topic and they said, “happiness is always there in the back of our mind, but we’re so caught up in our sorrow that we don’t pay attention to it.” It’s true isn’t it? When we’re overwhelmed by pain or sorrow we tend to forget the little stars that are shining for us day and night, sparkling around us like little butterflies bringing us laughter and smiles every day.

The gift of happiness is one that we all have the ability to give to someone. It’s cheap to give, but very weighty in it’s value. A simple joke, just giving someone a hand or sitting with a person and talking about random things can bring the light back into the eyes of someone who is looking for a reason to smile. Next time you see someone with a tear in their eye, remember they could be waiting for a butterfly to come to them and that butterfly could be you.