Serene K shares what Happiness Is About 'Connection' And 'Gratitude'
People complain. They're complaining all the time about everything. As a child, She was innocent enough to
believe what people were saying.She really thought there were plenty of valid reasons to complain: the weather
(most often), lack of money (runner-up), the neighbors, husband or wife, the children (me, in this case),
civilization (or the lack of it), bad health, etc. She assumed the world just turned out to be like this and there was
nothing much we could do. It was called "fate" or something.
The thing to do was to pray. Not to ask for a better life.
No! She learned to pray to ask God to forgive me for her sins.
She was a nice little girl, doing very well at school, polite with
the neighbors, helpful at home, so it was rather difficult to
keep finding sins for our weekly confession.
But because human beings are profoundly sinful by
birth, they told me,She had to go confess anyway. The
nuns at school came up with a solution to help us
out: they "prepared" our sins for us. Every Wednesday,
on confession day, they gave us a pink paper with
our "confessions of the day." She remember feeling
sorry for the poor priest, hidden in his little black cabin,
spending the entire day listening to the confessions
of 600 little girls, endlessly repeating the same sins
over and over...
Growing up, she figured something was missing.
Pretending to be sinful by repeating sins someone
else had cooked up for me, that could not be what
life is about. she refused to further confess sins that she
had not committed. She refused to believe that she was
the cause of her misery, and that she had to pray every
day without things getting better!
When she was 26,she went to Africa. And she had a wonderful time,
with plenty of sunshine and plenty of money;
circumstances people usually don't complain about,
right?
According to her childhood logic, people only complain
for a reason: lousy weather (too cold, too much rain),
lack of money, etc. But what she discovered over there
seriously opened her eyes! She "white" friends just went
on complaining: about the weather (too hot), about the
service (5 servants and still they were complaining) or
about how things were too expensive - while they were
earning 5 times as much as before!
She discovered there and then that the complaining was
not based on any objective reasons. She also noticed
that the black people, who were living in their villages
with close to nothing, were not complaining. She got
interested in this phenomenon: they had nothing
except a big smile on their face, while we had everything
and were still complaining! How could this be?
It became crystal clear to me that the complaints had
nothing to do with the outer circumstances. It was an
attitude, a habit. Next, she wanted to find out where this
habit came from.
So she examined the way of life of the local people and
compared it with our way of life. When she finally came
up with the explanation, it changed her life forever!
There are two important differences between them
and us. The first difference is that they have a social
network to help everyone in the village. They stick together.
They don't push out people who don't fit the norm. In our
society, everybody who is a bit different is sent to an
"institution." An institution is a place to collect those
individuals who cannot follow the fast pace of society
and thus fall out of the boat. Most institutions have
great walls to prevent us from "seeing" that these
people really exist.
They look more like a prison than a shelter.
Who are these people that don't fit in our society,
put away behind walls so we don't have to confront
them? They are the disabled, the diseased, the
dangerous ones, the mentally retarded or disturbed,
those who are too slow (they go to special schools),
too difficult to handle (they go to educational institutions)
and those who are too tired and too old (we put them
in expensive homes).
There in Africa, everybody stays in his own village and
is accepted and taken care of (except the really
dangerous ones, they go to prison). Everybody has
a natural social network and access to help. You are
not isolated from society merely because you cannot
talk or because you are mentally slow. They stick together.
She figured out that inner loneliness and isolation is one
of the main reasons why we are complaining so much.
The second difference is that all of these people are
connected to something "greater" than themselves.
They have a strong faith in a god who takes care of
them. They spend a lot of time performing rituals to
please their god(s) and get good health and harvest
in return.
She gave these two differences a lot of thought and
concluded that creating social networks of people
and a solid relationship with something bigger than
ourselves, are vitally important fundamentals of
human happiness.
Love be with you ,
Source : Serene K
People complain. They're complaining all the time about everything. As a child, She was innocent enough to
believe what people were saying.She really thought there were plenty of valid reasons to complain: the weather
(most often), lack of money (runner-up), the neighbors, husband or wife, the children (me, in this case),
civilization (or the lack of it), bad health, etc. She assumed the world just turned out to be like this and there was
nothing much we could do. It was called "fate" or something.
The thing to do was to pray. Not to ask for a better life.
No! She learned to pray to ask God to forgive me for her sins.
She was a nice little girl, doing very well at school, polite with
the neighbors, helpful at home, so it was rather difficult to
keep finding sins for our weekly confession.
But because human beings are profoundly sinful by
birth, they told me,She had to go confess anyway. The
nuns at school came up with a solution to help us
out: they "prepared" our sins for us. Every Wednesday,
on confession day, they gave us a pink paper with
our "confessions of the day." She remember feeling
sorry for the poor priest, hidden in his little black cabin,
spending the entire day listening to the confessions
of 600 little girls, endlessly repeating the same sins
over and over...
Growing up, she figured something was missing.
Pretending to be sinful by repeating sins someone
else had cooked up for me, that could not be what
life is about. she refused to further confess sins that she
had not committed. She refused to believe that she was
the cause of her misery, and that she had to pray every
day without things getting better!
When she was 26,she went to Africa. And she had a wonderful time,
with plenty of sunshine and plenty of money;
circumstances people usually don't complain about,
right?
According to her childhood logic, people only complain
for a reason: lousy weather (too cold, too much rain),
lack of money, etc. But what she discovered over there
seriously opened her eyes! She "white" friends just went
on complaining: about the weather (too hot), about the
service (5 servants and still they were complaining) or
about how things were too expensive - while they were
earning 5 times as much as before!
She discovered there and then that the complaining was
not based on any objective reasons. She also noticed
that the black people, who were living in their villages
with close to nothing, were not complaining. She got
interested in this phenomenon: they had nothing
except a big smile on their face, while we had everything
and were still complaining! How could this be?
It became crystal clear to me that the complaints had
nothing to do with the outer circumstances. It was an
attitude, a habit. Next, she wanted to find out where this
habit came from.
So she examined the way of life of the local people and
compared it with our way of life. When she finally came
up with the explanation, it changed her life forever!
There are two important differences between them
and us. The first difference is that they have a social
network to help everyone in the village. They stick together.
They don't push out people who don't fit the norm. In our
society, everybody who is a bit different is sent to an
"institution." An institution is a place to collect those
individuals who cannot follow the fast pace of society
and thus fall out of the boat. Most institutions have
great walls to prevent us from "seeing" that these
people really exist.
They look more like a prison than a shelter.
Who are these people that don't fit in our society,
put away behind walls so we don't have to confront
them? They are the disabled, the diseased, the
dangerous ones, the mentally retarded or disturbed,
those who are too slow (they go to special schools),
too difficult to handle (they go to educational institutions)
and those who are too tired and too old (we put them
in expensive homes).
There in Africa, everybody stays in his own village and
is accepted and taken care of (except the really
dangerous ones, they go to prison). Everybody has
a natural social network and access to help. You are
not isolated from society merely because you cannot
talk or because you are mentally slow. They stick together.
She figured out that inner loneliness and isolation is one
of the main reasons why we are complaining so much.
The second difference is that all of these people are
connected to something "greater" than themselves.
They have a strong faith in a god who takes care of
them. They spend a lot of time performing rituals to
please their god(s) and get good health and harvest
in return.
She gave these two differences a lot of thought and
concluded that creating social networks of people
and a solid relationship with something bigger than
ourselves, are vitally important fundamentals of
human happiness.
Love be with you ,
Source : Serene K
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