Are we happy with our life? When will we have enough?When will we be completely satisfied? Maybe it is difficult to know… But, let’s stop for a while and think why we feel sometimes miserable, if we have many things that would make other people happy.
That’s the problem. We spend all our life desiring what other people have instead of enjoying what we have at hand. We spend so much energy longing for other people’s achievements, that we miss the opportunity to relish the simple and wonderful things that are part of our everyday life.
You may think I’m speaking about material things, but not necessarily. There are people who are unable to enjoy other people’s happiness because they do not accept their life the way it is. Maybe, and I say maybe because I do not really know, we should start accepting our reality, trying to make the most of it . Time goes by so quickly, that it is not worth spending it with resentful or envious people. Acceptance is the key word to fight against these negative feelings that overwhelm us sometimes.
There is a wonderful prose poem called “Desiderata” (Latin: Desired Things), written in 1927 by the American writer Max Ehrmann, which may be considered to be the perfect recipe to achive total fulfilment. There are some lines that are a kind of summary to me:
“If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.”
Perhaps, we should accept and welcome all the “lemons” life gives us and make our own lemonade, instead of setting our eyes on our neighbours’ lemon tree…. Don’t you think so?
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