Happy-ness is...

(Part II)

1. A New Year. The only antidote to the blues of growing older with each New Year is not the consolation that women are like wine, blah blah blah. It’s the thought that you’re alive, alive enough to notice the crow’s feet and that horrifying strand of gray on your temple (When someone wishes that you’d someday have wrinkles and comb gray hair, he is actually wishing you well. Anyway, there’s always Botox and haircolor). On New Year’s Eve (albeit in different time zones), it’s like the earth’s two billion people are celebrating their birthdays because they’re celebrating the gift of another year. It is, therefore, the biggest, grandest simultaneous celebration ever.

2. Fearing the worst, but getting the best. It’s the same feeling of relief and gratitude that you get when you wake up from a bad dream. Ah, it was only a dream! Shortly before Christmas, my sisters and I were told that initial findings showed our dad had a mild heart attack and his arteries were clogged. Heart surgery was an option. We stormed the heavens with prayers. And then, just before the New Year, further tests showed that it wasn’t a heart attack after all, and that a heart bypass was no longer being considered. The chest pains were not life-threatening and would not affect Dad’s lifespan. A turnaround from worst to best – virtually overnight. God is good, and God listens.

3. A melt-in-your mouth basic Krispy Kreme doughnut heated for 30 seconds in the oven toaster. Personally, this is my favorite variety – just sugar-glazed, and with no filling. Often, the best things and the best people are those who come to you the way they really are. Plain and simple. What they are outside is also what they are inside.

4. A Cory Aquino painting. It’s not just her signature or her distinct style or the fact that she does not sell them that makes a Cory Aquino painting valuable. What makes it priceless is what it represents – the beauty of moving on gracefully. Cory began painting prolifically after her presidency, and her paintings reflect the grace of someone who is not attached to power and its trappings, as leaders should be. Happiness is being unglued to temporary glory. Whether you’re the president of the Philippines or the local homeowners association.

5. A motorist who lets you cut in even during rush hour. On the road, one of the best gestures you could ever see is a wave of the hand, signaling that you go first. In the US, motorists are systematic when there is no traffic light and two cars reach an intersection. They alternate, walang lamangan. Here, it’s babae lang ang nilalamangan. But once in a while, you encounter drivers who actually stop to let you go first, or to let you cut in when in a tight fix. In a very real way, they are giving up something (a precious three minutes, perhaps?) to make life easier for a stranger. My husband is one such person. And so when someone lets me cut in, I always think it is my husband’s good karma on the road that is being reflected on me.

6. Oprah. She lifts moods with her words, and lives with her actions. Tired of just "writing out checks," Oprah walked her talk and built a school for disadvantaged girls in South Africa. "I really became frustrated with the fact that all I did was write check after check," she told Newsweek. "At a certain point, you want to feel that connection." Oprah spent five years and $40 million to build the school outside Johannesburg. She said the school was inspired by her own humble beginnings.

7. Not giving up on yourself. Chris Gardner, the character on whom the movie The Pursuit of Happyness was based, said one good thing he did in life was "not to quit" on himself. Once homeless, he is now a wealthy Wall Street stockbroker.

I saw Barry Manilow on TV talking about the time when, after selling more than 50 million hit records, he found himself bankrupt. He trusted other people more than himself to take care of his money and they took him to the cleaners. "How did that happen?" he asked himself. Instead of wallowing in his folly (You know what they say, a fool is born...), he struggled to make a comeback when the boy bands where lording it over the airwaves – and made it.

8. True love. Last year, a young couple was about to tie the knot when the family of the man asked the woman to sign a pre-nuptial agreement a few days before the wedding. The woman refused, and broken hearted, fled to the US. The would-be groom followed her. Love conquered all and they were married in the US. He was subsequently disinherited by his family but it turns out his wife’s family is richer than his!

Happy New Year!

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