I wonder why there is so much unhappiness in the world sometimes. I'm currently reading R. K. Narayan's Waiting for the Mahatma. The world the protagonist in the book lives in is a rather harsh one. And he seems to be quite unhappy. What makes one unhappy?
Some days, I ask myself what the heck I am doing here. Maybe its because I have worked for the same person for 4 years and the same company for over 6. This was supposed to be a short-term job that would bring bigger and better things. I don't know what it has brought. I mean, I am doing better things. I am doing bigger things. But I don't know if it makes me happy any more. I don't wake up with the anticipation of hurrying to work to learn something new and make the world a better place. I don't know why. I suppose I have the ability to do that to a certain extent. Is it the lack of ambition?
Reading back to some of the earliest posts on this blog, I gave myself the task of being happy. Like it is something you do like take a shower or brush your teeth. That was almost 5 years ago. I don't know that I have made much progress since then. Life has changed. I have grown. Not just fat, but as a person too. I know a lot more than I did then. I also realise what little I know now and how much more there is to learn. Does that make me unhappy? Not really.
Is the world around me making me unhappy? I don't know. Am I unhappy because interest rates went up yesterday and my mortgage payments are changing? Yes, but that doesn't make me unhappy. Well it does, but its not the same kind of unhappiness. I knew, going into this owning a place business that interest rates would go up. I hedged my bets on it not going up too much in the next 5 years... something that can be validated in 5 years I suppose.
I was wandering by the sea wall the other day (did I mention I live 1 block from it?) and I realised that I was living in paradise. It was sunny and warm but not hot, the breeze was gentle, the scenery marvellous, the sounds of the water lapping on the sea wall comforting the healthy scantily clad women, beautiful... by all accounts, I should be giddy with joy. And I think I was. For that brief moment. But then I come back to various things that bother me. My age bothers me. Not because I am getting older. We all get older. I wanted to achieve a lot more by the time I was here. Except I can't figure what what 'a lot more' is. My job bothers me. I don't know why. I expected to do a lot more. Except I don't know what lot more is here either. My health bothers me. The fact that my knees hurt and I can't run 10k on a dime annoys me.
People bother me. Like when I see dog crap on the sidewalk. Or when they jaywalk when I am driving. Or when they use up 3 seats on the bus... one for their bag, one for their ass and one for their miscellaneous hand held things like the free newspaper and Starbucks that they proceed to spill on the seat. The free newspaper dispensers bother me. I think they waste their lives giving away worthless pieces of rubbish that clog up the streets and trains and buses. Leave the damn papers in a pile somewhere and go about doing something better with your life rather than trying to give me free newspapers.
Should any of this make me unhappy? Should I care that dogs poo on the sidewalk and owners keep going away like they didn't notice? Should I care that I feel like my job is taking me nowhere useful? Should I care that I may be at significant risk for cardiovascular disease on account of my fat ass and elevated levels of LDL and triglycerides?
I don't know. On the one hand, yes, I should care about it all. These are all solved problems though. I just don't have an effective way of solving them myself... but I do know that people have solved them rather easily. So, why am I unhappy over them? How do I get myself motivated to try and tackle them? Am I going off the deep end?
Ideas?
Comments