“Happiness consists more in the small conveniences of pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life.”
Benjamin Franklin

I was walking down the street when the sweet sweet smell of chocolate splashed into my face. Chocolate…I haven’t eaten it in… how long? I can remember so clearly its tender taste on my lips, warmth spreading through my body and pleasure through my mind. Why did I stop eating it? Calories and weight, skin? Those things won’t matter tomorrow. I enter the shop and buy a dark chocolate bar wrapped in red paper. I’m breaking it up into small pieces and putting one in my mouth, letting it melt on my tongue. “Mmmm…” The moment of happiness.


“Freedom means the opportunity to be what we never thought we would be.”
Daniel J. Boorstin

I wake up this uneasy feeling that is stronger than usual, with extreme resentfulness to the idea of going to work. Maybe it is the chocolate I ate yesterday, or maybe it’s just the time itself the thing that makes me feel and see things a bit differently, uncovering the rebellious side of myself, that was sleeping deep inside. I decide, in the end, to pack my bag and I do proceed to work. Pathetic, you would say, I know. I do this on a regular basis. ‘Rebelling’ and than just doing nothing. But, the job is important. Like every working day of the week, I walk through the door; go up to the second floor and start walking to my office. That uneasy feeling from this morning gets even stronger as grumpy faces of other employees look at me while I pass by. I can hear my boss shouting through the closed door. Then, the door opens and the same angry voice calls me inside. I stand there, for I don’t know which time, just letting her words bounce off of my mind. Few minutes pass, they seemed like hours, and I just can’t stand it anymore. I turn and head towards the door. “Where do you think you’re going?” she shouts after me. “I quit.” The moment of freedom.


“Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.”
Saint Augustine

Getting rid of my job feels so good. It was just this burden I carried and now it’s gone. But there are so many burdens left. New arguments, old grudges. And yes, my parents. I left my house when I was 18, without looking back, never thanking them for everything they did for me, and just because they didn’t like, although they approved, my fiancé at the time. The same guy I divorced year and a half later. I stand by the phone, trying to remember the long phone number of a distant country, one I wanted to dial many times but didn’t. My fingers slowly move. I hear the phone ringing on the other side… and then a voice. For a short time I think about hanging up… No. “Mom, I’m sorry… And mom, thank you. For everything.” The moment of humility.


“See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...we need silence to be able to touch souls.”
Mother Teresa of Calcutta

The whole world started spinning so fast. Now when I have more time, I thought I would be able to relax. But I can’t… Life just keeps slamming new things into my face and the pressure I feel is even greater then before. I wouldn’t say quitting my job was a bad idea; I just have to adjust, find some peace. Peace…I decide to go out, out into nature and wilderness to free myself. Another thing I haven’t done in such a long time, another thing that used to make me happy. So, I stand here, on the top of the mountain, everything’s still. And I just stare into the distance. I hear the wind, nothing more. The moment of silence.


“Anger is a symptom, a way of cloaking and expressing feelings too awful to experience directly - hurt, bitterness, grief, and, most of all, fear.”
Joan Rivers

As I started to resolve problems from my past, I knew that I would have to do this eventually. I’m sitting in that yellow-chaired café bar I usually go to to meet with Tara or just to get out of my flat and read a book. But, Tara is not the one sitting on the other side of the table today. I’m looking at Marco and he’s looking back at me. He moved with me to this town during our unfortunate one-and-a-half-year marriage and stayed here, making it impossible to do this conversation over the phone. So, we start talking, first about everyday things, as it usually goes, but very soon we get to the reason why I wanted to meet with him – the past. Ironically, I left him the same way I left my parents, without a word. Now when I think about it, it seems that I haven’t always been this compliant calm person. If I were, maybe myself and Marco would still be together. But what has happened has happened. And one way or another, I wouldn’t be able to stand our arguments and his way of life in general. I wanted him to know that, to know why I didn’t like him and why did I, finally, left him. He then does something I could’ve expected him to do: he twists the whole situation, blaming me and only me for all of our problems. So many nights we spend shouting, he spent shouting and I spent listening to him, pass through my thoughts. And I’m hurt. I’m truly hurt. Anger over floods my mind, suffocating everything else I felt: sadness, disappointment, frustration. I sit up and doing that turn over the small café table. A glass hits the floor. “Crash!” The moment of anger.


“I found more joy in sorrow than you could find in joy”
Sara Teasdale

Dealing with past made me thing about it more than usual. I find one of those old dusty boxes you packed before you left home and than put it on the bottom shelf behind suitcases you never use. It is the time to go through old memories and times that were, on one hand, truly happy. I prepare for spending a nice afternoon on a blue carpet by the big dayroom window, sun warming my back, just looking at old photos and reading the letters and postcards from friends I stopped talking to a long time ago. And precisely those friends and conversations I’ve never had with them, although I wanted to, all the moments that have passed by and I’ve missed them turn my warm blue afternoon into very sad one. I know you shouldn’t be sad about something I didn’t do, but I am and I cannot help myself. I’m sad and I cry. And I cry about everything I always wanted to cry about, but never did. The final cleansing of the soul. Lonely sobs echo through the apartment. The moment of sorrow.


“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.”
Rabindranath Tagore

I don’t want to grieve over missing opportunities ever again. I will live in the moment and for the moment. I will be selfish. I will help myself before helping the world. I cannot change anything without changing myself. I, I, I… My life truly is about me, my own feelings. It is true that we all strive to achieve happiness. And the questions is never ‘Can it be achieved?’, it’s always ‘How?’ Possibility of being happy is what keeps us alive. And being truly alive keeps us happy. And I feel alive. I start running. Up, up, always up ,towards the sky and the stars. The world and the people are spread around me and beneath me. I shout on top of my lungs. The moment of death.