Tonight my children will return from school. I’ll ask them if they had a good day; they will answer me in more or less detail, depending on the mood and how the day was. Then they might ask me for pocket money or want me to help them with their homework. Happiness.
Tonight I’m going to ask my wife if she forgot to buy some bread, she’ll say she did, add “As usual” then say “Bread is here and I’m fine, yes, thank you!” We will laugh and I will feel a little stupid, a little worthless, but nevertheless I will be amused by the little marital lesson I have received. Happiness.
Tonight we’ll talk and have dinner together, and when it gets dark we’ll have electricity so we don’t have to sit in the dark. Happiness.
Tonight I’ll sleep in bed, under the roof. Happiness.
I’ll fall asleep thinking of all the simple joyswhich I was given to experience for one more day. Happiness.
I will think of all the people I knew and loved who have already died. Who can no longer enjoy this imperfect and wonderful life. And although they are all now, probably, in paradise, and even if they are much better there than here, I will still be a little sad that these people are no longer on our earth. And yet the fact that I knew them is happiness.
I will try to give a little more space to what makes me happy, otherwise what makes me sad will take up all the available space.
Tonight – yes, at this particular time – I will think of all the people who have never had these simple pleasures, or they were, but rarely, or they knew these joys, and then lost them. I will be sad and feel how lucky I am. Then I will think: “It is useless, your sadness will not reduce the number of sorrows in this world; it is better to act to alleviate them than to suffer guilt.” Happiness.
Tonight, as I fall asleep, I will observe in my thoughts a mixture of what makes me sad and what makes me happy. I will try to give a little more space to what makes me happy, otherwise what makes me sad will take up all the available space, as usual. Maybe it won’t work; but I know that sooner or later it will work again. Happiness.
Tonight, after all this, I’ll feel my body breathe, of course, and I will fall asleep with a smile, thinking that tomorrow, if everything goes well, I will suddenly notice that I woke up, that I hear, that I feel, that I see and that my body works more or less normally.
Lord, wherever you are, whatever you look like, make sure that I never get used to all these blessings, that I never forget their existence, even when the wind of my life is not favorable. Imperfect happiness, rumpled happiness, transient happiness, naive happiness, absurd happiness and all other types of happiness – thank you for helping me resist the vicissitudes of fate, give, love. Live.