Up

Every day I need a reminder. Even with an incredible amount of mental engagement whereas I read, process and act upon a hefty amount of information, I still find myself slipping into the dark well time and again. It’s like going scuba diving: you are given the equipment to explore and enjoy the underwater world – just remember to keep breathing. But once you panic, the marine beauty dissolves from your view: all you know now is that you’re deep under water struggling to draw a breath and you may never come up to the surface.

Similarly in life, we have the “equipment” to discover and experience happiness but panic and fear, bad news and lack of hope throw us into a frantic struggle not to drown (forget about happiness). We build up a solid wall using bricks of positivity but should one brick crack, the whole structure comes tumbling down. And then it’s time to start the process all over.

People with unstable emotional world but vigorous survival instinct seek powerful motivators, which they can resort to in times of diminishing hope and extinguished enthusiasm. Our little tricks to stay afloat, to mislead others to believing in our upbeat personality and positive attitude. We, who were not born all smiley and positive, who take effort in becoming and staying so, who fight the pull-down force on a daily basis.

I’ve met people who found strange satisfaction in their hardships, who almost worshiped them with the feeling of triumph: see! we didn’t think much of life and were proven right! Take out their misfortunes and they will have nothing left for indulgent whimper has been their way of coping for too long, leaving no space for appreciation and gratitude when good things occur. I’ve also met people with the most effortless aptitude for happiness and bottomless well of optimism, radiating positive energy and contagious glee. But most of us are in the middle: neither too happy but anxiously wanting to be so, nor too miserable yet always in fear of things to take a downturn.

If there was a scale for happiness, every day we would point to a different mark. But the goal is not to reach the highest number and stick to it rigidly – that is utterly impossible. The goal should be to stay higher rather than lower. So every day I retrieve the familiar or newly acquired reminders why I can and should be happy this particular day, and the more reminders I have in store, the easier I find it to fight the emerging gloom and push myself up the scale.