I’m reading “The Antidote. Happiness for people that can’t stand positive thinking”.
Thought of my mom while reading it.
My mom has a very particular philosophy of life. In a nutshell, it comes to three main points.
Duty comes before anything else.
It’s better to expect less so you are not disappointed.
People are not to be trusted until they prove themselves to be trustworthy.
Today, she gave me a lesson in happiness, and it surprised me.
- I think I found the right book for you, mom! The one that describes your life philosophy, you might like to read it.
- Hmm, are you implying that I don’t support positive thinking? I don’t support self-delusions! I consider it idiotic; it means to look at a donkey and say, “what a beautiful horse”!
- Well, I still think you will like the book. For example, the author is saying that the rush after happiness is what makes us unhappy.
- Nobody can be continually happy, and nobody can be continually unhappy. All the religions are talking about a balance, one that you find through love, sacrifice and acceptance. Psychology, psychiatry, they are slippery. There is no such thing as soul dissection. The same outside conditions can build very different characters – serial criminals and saints can both be born out of similar trauma. The oldest drug in the world, alcohol, cannot solve this problem either – some drunks are sad, others are funny, or boring, or annoying, or aggressive. They are all trying the same thing, to escape their feelings, but there is no universal recipe on how to manage your feelings. Books and art are also a form of escaping from an imperfect world. Beauty is born out of suffering, but ugliness also is born out of suffering. The survivors are not the ones analyzing their feelings, but the doers. Like you."
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It took a lifetime, but maybe I am finally starting to understand my mother, as she is finally starting to understand me.
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