Something about Happiness

by Sandister Tei

Dear Marissa,

Until you get what you want, you are not happy. But it can happen that you may never get what you want or how you want it. So will you resign to a life of permanent unhappiness because you are without your desires? If yes, that is not wise or realistic. If you have been standing still at the place of your unhappiness all this while, you are not real.

Now a good way to move from unhappiness is not with the use of force or fight. Especially with people, you mostly don’t get what you want but only what they are willing to give. You have to accept that as a human, normally, you hand people or certain things the right to determine your happiness. However they can constantly fall short every time in making you happy. All you can do is to let go, and find someone or something else to be the means to your needs.

In this day, it is only the unrealistic ones who believe there is only one person or thing for them and if they don’t get these, they are done for. That is blindness. Open your eyes and look around you, there is so much more out there for you. Yes, you may have sacrificed a lot for that which you never got. It could be your money, your virginity, a compromise on your principles, a life, good years and so on. However, if you don’t let go or better if you don’t cut your losses and run, what else is there for you to do?

Now when it comes to moving on, one problem is you know not how many hours of life you have left to find and enjoy something new. Yet, plenty or little, you can make your last hours from this day forward happy because you have decided the sad ones have got to go. Every second you live, is one second taken off your life and you are nearing the end. What do you really want to use these days for? Being caged and depressed by love for someone or some ambition that is not happening? Be smart. There is only one guarantee and that is the fact that it isn’t guaranteed that we will get what we want or it will come in our time looking like how we planned it to be.

I know many controlling people reading this won’t be supportive of this whole letting go sermon. However insisting and demanding that your way becomes the way and always having to spell out to people how you want things done will wear you out. I think there are somethings that a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, best friend, family, employer, employee, and so on should know and do. We have our roles and place in this so-called circle of life and so if there is this negative person or situation that you constantly have to flip over, you constantly have to cry over, you constantly have to tire over, you need to move on from it. No one is irreplaceable not even you.

One morning in life, wisdom will call out to you and impart the truth that it is possible for you to change what you deem as happiness into something else attainable and equally good, and even better than what you were there pining away for. I hope by then it won’t be late.

But letting go too, doesn’t come at once. Be prepared to fail and backslide on your resolve but you will get there. You will do your “40 years in the desert” and if you don’t die, you will get there.

Often I say life is really not that short and many people think I am crazy. Look, some living organisms have 30 minutes for a life span. They simply go about their business doing what they came here to do and when it’s time, they leave. But we humans with all the noise we know to make and intelligence that has been bestowed upon us, come here to waste the years. Especially those holding on to things that they should fly by and those who keep going back to the mess that had them before. So, by the time we wise up and manage to find some happiness and actually start enjoying life, it is time to die.

The Twi have this saying “Wei de ahye wo papa” yes Marissa somethings are painful. Learn to come to terms and let go. Destinies are not fixed until they are fixed. They are parts we can alter including what we regard as happiness. I know from the way we are made, we have options and the flexibility to explore them. Destinies become destinies when we take the vagueness, the greys in the beginnings and specify the colors. When you come to terms, you hardly get stuck. You know that when one door closes another will open. When one person steps out, another walks right in. It’s drill. You only enjoy it and benefit when you accept it that way. Life can be volatile, but people are made to adjust. You are constantly being handed lemons, Sista, make lemonade.

But you can stay in the default loser mode and obstinately decide not to move or evolve. Or you can decide although with a lot of heartbreak to walk away, leaving a trail of your tears which nonetheless will dry. You want to do something, it’s failing, you can keep doing it the same way and keep getting the same results or you can as I said humbly come to terms and do things differently, letting go of the status quo.

To sign off, those that happiness is new to, handle it with inexperience. But when you are used to it, knowing how good it feels to be happy, you won’t let some people and some things waste your time. Don’t be stubborn if what you were desiring didn’t come to you. It could be that you weren’t good enough and ready for it or perhaps it rather wasn’t good enough for you. But whichever one it is, and so what? Please, on to the next one, we can move on can’t we?

Well I am sitting on my Grandma’s porch. After writing to you, I am going to edit the blueprint of my life. All I care about is my end should read “… And she lived happily ever after”. Therefore I am not afraid to change plans and erase a few names and put some factors on hold. I can risk making a wrong move yeah? But I prefer that to marking time in the same miserable spot, I have been in.

To happiness, Sandi.

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