August 2, 2008
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Le bonheur, c'est de le chercher
Going back in time, it wasn't too long ago that I would literally lie in bed all morning because my life had so little meaning. Unemployment and a lack of friends in a foreign land rendered me helpless and incredibly depressed. Although there was the occasional ray of sunshine, it never shined brightly enough to prevent the inevitable self-destructive behavior and decision making to which I am unfortunately prone. Life felt so hopeless that I would have given anything to trade mine for someone else's.
This current chapter of my life, however, happens to effing rock and has most definitely made up for all the unhappiness I endured just months ago. But how did I get here? Is it risk taking and perseverance, or did I end up here by pure chance? After all, this position did more or less fall into my lap. Yes, I mailed a CV, a couple of letters of reference and had a lengthy telephone interview, but I still believe that it's all thanks to a friend that I am even in Switzerland. Whatever the reason, I'm here and I am in love with life. It's a temporary euphoria, though, for I know that life won't be nearly as thrilling or rewarding once I leave this beautiful country.
So, I guess what I want to say is that life is full of highs and lows and you've got to learn to appreciate both. This place would be amazing regardless of the situation, but after having been so miserable earlier this year, I have valued this experience more than words could ever say. My coworkers are fun and mostly drama-free; my students are brilliant, motivated and kind; and the kids in my dorm hug me, love me and open up to me on a daily basis. Basically: I feel loved, needed and appreciated. My heart is being allowed to work at near maximum capacity, which, for me, represents the most important aspect of happiness.
Check back in a few weeks and I guarantee that my joie de vivre will have calmed down quite a bit.
Despite recent comments from a couple of friends, my life is not a perfect fairytale. I'm merely trying to appreciate genuine happiness while it's within my reach. We've all got our own problems, worries and insecurities, but if you look closely, beauty is all around.
Comments (5)
I think I first commented on a post of yours because you wrote so well about your happiness, that it made me happy too! this post of yours here is a continuation of that, and an attempt to express a fuller (even) happiness. It is good to read that you are encountering such an experience. Certainly life is meant to be full of happiness. But we can't all live in Switzerland. Much of what you feel comes, I venture to say, from a political liberation and the moral burdens that are bound up in the USA. I think there were times in the history of the United States when our citizens had such a zest for life as you express. "Sin" can be not only personal, but systemic...and I think you are experiencing a society that does not have such a burden of guilt, and hence, life can flourish with greater vivacity.
Or does it? I once asked you to try to see the invisible around you. See what isn't there, what is absent, or ....hidden. Innocence is often just ignorance. And moral rectitude is a society can be merely ethnic superiority. Switzerland is definitely a place apart; apart from the horrible wars of Europe's 20th century. But it was not untouched by those wars, or the religious wranglings of the Reformation. And, now, as Europe struggles to find a new identity, Switzerland must give voice to a political ideology - must take a political stance - and is even now taking on that moral responsibility. Will it lose its innocence? Will the shadow of Mordor cross over the Misty Mountains?
Say hello to Frodo for me! Enjoy the Shire while it still may be.
oops...read that:
moral rectitude IN a society.....
And there you are -- happiness in the now! Your job sounds terrific, and the pictures you post consistently make me wish I were on that side of the pond again. (Until a soft California breeze wafts in the window, that is!)
"Basically: I feel loved, needed and appreciated. My heart is being allowed to work at near maximum capacity, which, for me, represents the most important aspect of happiness."
That's all that is important. ::hugs::
Such true words. Beauty is all around us, in both the highs and the lows, the good times and the bad. We cannot know happiness without sadness and cannot measure joy without sorrow. The trick is to appreciate each moment, as it is, for what it is. Because that moment will end and be replaced with another.
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