Intransigent about happiness

(Sunday, 21 June 2009)

I came to the realisation of an important takeaway from this trip: I’m becoming intransigent about happiness.

Why? I’m now used to doing what I feel like, when I feel like, the way I feel like, with whom I feel like. The all time.

This may come across as an undesirable trait. After all, we all know one of those children – or adults! – who are used to doing what they feel like, when they feel like, the way they feel like, with whom they feel like. And often they aren’t that pleasant, are they? Or happy, for that matter…

But I actually think I’ve been acquiring such intransigence in a value-added way. I mean, I’ve been offering myself the opportunity to try out things I had always wanted to do but never had the chance to. And some other things that I had never thought about, but the pleasure of experiencing them has resulted as fresh and enriching surprises. I’ve been seeing new things, walking new walks, talking new talks, realising the world is a much bigger, more beautiful and interesting place than I had comprehended before.

Do you remember the flying plastic bag scene from the movie American Beauty, and the famous quote: "sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it”? Yes, I think it’s a bit about that…

So, one thing I feel the need to is, going forward, to keep looking at things this way. Be it here, in Colombia, elsewhere in Latin America, or back home. To look around me and see too many interesting things to do, and at the same time to feel the days too short to accomplish them. To interiorise that reality, and therefore be intransigent about pursuing what really passions me, instead of loosing time with unsatisfactory compromises and tradeoffs.

I like the word “intransigent”: I think it captures well the inflexibility of the feeling I’m trying to describe. And if such intransigence is put at good use, I think it can loose the negative connotation it’s so often attached to it…

Well, if this is the takeaway, I now need to find out what it means to live it in a sustainable and productive way once back home. But I still have time to figure that one out, don’t I?