Being happy

I was just taking a crap and reading this book which inspired me like no other. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I was just randomly flipping through the pages and I found this part which really struck me.

She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and somethings even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top on it. If you don't, you will leak away your innate contentment. It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress, but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments.

AMEN! I think this part is so meaningful. I think she's quite right too. You know like how married couples get married and then they just leave their relationship there and then. But that's not how you maintain a relationship. It's like maintaining a pot of flowers. By maintaining it, you water it every day and check on alternate days if there are any infection or insects.

A couple of days back I embarked on my journey of a million miles to school, and during the arduous journey, I so very kindly gave up my seat to this pregnant lady who was going to work with her husband. She sat and she waved at her husband, asking him to come over and stand near her. Oh that's because she was actually kind of far away from the seat.

(Actually I wasn't trying to be kind, I thought that this was a good opportunity for me to boost my metabolism rate. HAHAHA, no I'm just kidding I'm nice and she looked like she's going to topple over with so much weight on her torso.)

Anyway, for some unknown reason, the bloody man didn't want to go over to stand with her. I didn't really understand why either. But due to a higher power, after about ten minutes, the stupid fella then went over to stand with her. The poor lady, she was trying to have a conversation with him and he just ignored her. She stretched her arm out fully and held onto his hand, which mind you, was kept crossed tightly to his body.

I really couldn't understand. I mean it's none of my business and I'm in no position to comment, but why is he treating her like this? It is because she's pregnant and thus unattractive. The woman, has suffered probably 8 months with morning sickness and peeing up to twenty times a day, and she's going to suffer for 4 hours in labour, thereafter a torn and bleeding vagina, huge heavy and sore breasts and probably hormones change which will make her look horrible, and that idiot actually just ignored her with the train full of people.

I can't even fathom the kind of treatment he gives her in the privacy of their own home.

I always believed in having an active role in maintaining relationships. It might sound like fiction or a very worn-out movie plot, but I'm telling you, if no one puts in the effort, the relationship or marriage won't just become stagnant, it will stagger backwards and fall into a pit. I guess in a way, people don't see the importance of maintaining their happiness, that's why everytime when you go out, you see a lot of sullen-looking couples walking around looking as unhappy as they ever could be.

I don't ever, ever want to be like that. I mean you just imagine now, just imagine that you've found this person of your dreams, and he/she is really really all you can ask for and you really really loveeee this person to bits. Then both of you get married, buy a beautiful apartment with a great view, both of you are happy. You stand together at the balcony looking out at the sunset, then a couple of days later you are very tired after work and you prefer to just sit on the sofa and watch telly. And soon, no one ever goes to the balcony anymore.

It takes mighty effort to maintain a relationship, that's not a lie, that's not anything of depth. It is just the plain truth. It's hard to maintain a relationship.

I remember once during service, a lady from Korea came to give us a sermon. She's quite old and she talked about maintaining her marriage. There was once her husband came home really late from work and she spent the whole night waiting for him to come home. When he finally got home, he told her to make coffee. She was perplexed. She thought I spent the whole night waiting for you, and now you want me to make me coffee? Then at that moment, I agreed with her too. Then she said, "But I realised something and I went to make the coffee anyway. It's already so late and instead of sleeping, he wants to have coffee with me."

Jinglong and I are quite okay at maintaining our relationship. For him, he tries his best to make time for me and I know it because I know how tough his course is but he tries to finish assignments so that he can have dinner with me. This is his mighty effort, and it really is mighty because his modules are so demanding but he'll still try. I think I'm not trying very hard but it's mostly because I'm quite free most of the time, but I try la. I write letters to him in Chinese with a lot of wrong characters HAHAHAHA.

Hi baby I love you, I'm happy with you and you're not to ignore me!!!! Though I know you won't because you're welly nice to me hehehe.

Okie I am going to do my assignments now because I stab myself a day before the deadline.