I was catching up on some news in our local daily today. Some boring, some interesting, some funny and some..just got me thinking. I’m not sure if she is a regular writer but her article about being surrounded by happy thoughts struck me. I wanted to know her secret formula for being happy. She started off by saying that she got the happy bug from her friend who is currently in a zippy mode renovating his pad. It was like a “transferred” happy feeling (if you can call it that). Then, she went on to describe how people equate happiness with material wealth. The more material wealth, the happier they are without realising that they are in fact more unhappy with the constant worrying about, say, their brand new luxury car being stolen at the car park resulting in fact, more unhappiness.

There is, to a certain extent some wisdom in what she had to say but are we then ultimately saying that poor people are happier without ending up being unhappy since they won’t own a luxury car to have it stolen in the first place? Thats the thing isn’t it? Poor people aren’t exactly happy and shinny either. Oh what they would give to not have to worry about whether they’d have their next meal, or whether they’d be kick out of their rented apartment soon for 3 months unpaid rent.

I feel the writer failed to address the issue of “what really makes people happy or unhappy?”. Its not about wealth or the lack of it. Its our level of contentment with life as there will always be circumstances where we’d feel happy or sad, irregardless of the reason and wealth is just ONE of them. Its about contentment and how contented we are. For instance, right now, I am contented though I don’t own a mansion in Beverly Hills or a real estate Branson. I do not drive a Ferrari or a Chevy either. However, I am contented with what I have – love, understanding and of course, some cash for spending. In that sense, yeah, I am happy and there is virtually nothing more that I could ever want. Well, except for that LV tote I’ve had my eye on *wink*.