Happiness is a warm gun.

“They say that in the beginning Happiness was a large crystall ball. The Gods used to play with it. One day, while they were asleep, Happiness fell on earth and shattered into millions of tiny pieces. People were so fascinated with their beauty that they immediately began collecting them. Some gathered a lot, others found only a few. No one, however, could collect them all.”

Whenever we are being asked what we want to achieve most in life, some of us would say Success, some say Happiness, others say Success AND Happiness. It is no wonder, since the assumption goes that if we are successful and capable, the gap between having a wish and actually fulfilling that wish automatically diminish, thus leaving us happy.

Whenever I am being asked what I want to achieve most in life, I would be gaping wide-eyed and dumb-founded in search of a satisfying answer and it sure would take me a lot of time to finally come up with one. So far, I haven’t came up with any, instead I would tackle the question with the most ridiculous answers I can think of, like “to find a true love and live happily ever after” or “to be rich and live like a king” or a simple “apa keehhhkkk”.

Let’s review my options: I can’t say that my utmost dream is to be successful, because being successful has a limit and it still doesn’t guarantee that I’ll be happy. I can’t say that my utmost dream is to be happy either since truthfully, I don’t even know what happiness is. I can’t touch it, smell it, eat it, hear it, feel it, so why should I wish for something that even my sharpest senses cannot distinguish? It would be like trying to capture a moonbeam; it’s too airy and formless that even if it’s right in front of you, you can’t help but to see past right through it.

Us Indonesians have this special ability to accept any joy and tragedy that happen to us merely as the divine movements of fate. It is fair to say that we have suffered through enough misfortunes living in a country where according to a research, happiness is hard to find, that overtime the irony had become something to laugh at and to be accepted with open arms.

And that’s how I roll. I cherish joy as it should be and swallow whole whatever bad luck that comes in the way. In other words, my biggest, most desperate wish in life is to be able to sway to whatever direction the wind blows, swim to whatever direction the river flows, with feet stil firmly fixed to the ground. Like a tree with its sturdy roots tenacious deep inside earth, yet its leaves carefree and dancing in mid air, in the hope that with the right combination of firm principles mixed with acceptance, happiness will finally resurface from within.

Although, I actually have one secret wish: I want to be useful to humankind, so my short life on earth will not go to waste J Now that’s what I call optimism...