What Is Happiness?
June 12th, 2008 -- Posted in rants | 2 Comments »How do you find satisfaction in life?
Strangely, this question didn’t come from my teenage sister. It came from my father, who is soon turning 60 next month.
Dad came over to KL for a visit. We were having dinner when we chatted on various topics. One of the persisting topic that is always mentioned over dinner is how depressing it is when his girlfriend from China can’t get visitor’s visa into Singapore to be with him, and how he finds the family so dispersed at home due to his frequence in China over the past years.
It’s a tricky situation, if you ask me.
A brief background of this… After Mom passed away 14 years ago, Dad went into a depressive state for a few years and his kids were left to learn independence. In fact, we were used to independence from him before Mom’s passing as he used to be outstationed at the factory in Indonesia for work. Over the years, we took care of ourselves while giving Dad enough time to heal. By the time we, the older kids, went abroad for studies, Dad was well enough to return to work at the factory. That left Annie, the youngest, to spend her primary school years mostly by herself.
Years later, Dad wasn’t happy with the restructure of the manufacturing team during his absence so he left the factory and started his own marketing company, venturing into Malaysia and Greater China markets. During one of his trips to China, he met the woman who eventually became his girlfriend. They have been together for 9 years now. While he’s trying to save his ‘dispersed family’ in Singapore, his short-lived attempts backfired and found comfort from this girlfriend in China.
So over the dinner, he was complaining to me about how he lacks satisfaction in life. He lost his wife at age 46, found nonahievement in his career at age 50 and now torn between his girlfriend and his kids at 60. How worse can a mid life crisis get?
I told him…
Don’t persist what you can’t change. My sisters and I are already adults and we have been independent half our lives. Instead, let us adapt and live on. Perhaps one day your girlfriend will be granted the visiter entry and you’d spend more time in Singapore. When my sisters get married, they’d appreciate family life like I do now and spend more time at home. If everything goes as smoothly as you want, then where’s the challenge in life? Where’s the excitement?
Start looking for satisfaction from small achievements instead of waiting for the big ones to happen. Sometimes it helps if you sectionize your achievements. Sometimes small little goals help too, e.g. exercising for 10-20 mins everyday. Rome is not built within a day. Exercising does help too, as the body produces endorphins to keep us happy.
Key word is patience.
Not sure if he understood my points, or he was just nodding out of fatigue. I’m already taking over his much neglected business to relief him from stress so I hope he’d get better soon.
