Its 10am, on yet another Thursday. This must be the thousandth week I am penning this column. As usual, my editor is on my neck. We need to go to press, and on time, he says. In a bit I will be done writing, and I will be back to doing other things.
And the wheel of my life goes round, and next week I will be here, and I will be doing the same thing, or may be not? I am not complaining. I like what I do, and if the universe intends, From the Heart will soon be 10 years old.
As much as what I have been doing and what I am doing makes sense, I must confess there are days when all this makes me a bit dizzy.
Then things get a tad hazy and my wheel of life runs a little slower as I try to make sense of all this.
And for the umpteenth time I will ask, what is life all about? I will try to make sense of it — just like many other millions of people are doing right now, and the wheel of life keeps moving.
The pursuit of happiness has seen many of us make drastic decisions. Some women — and men up and leave their children to go to a new town or country, shutting out a life they have known for ages.
Some people leave top jobs to take up mundane ones, all because they want to find satisfaction in life. Sometimes, a would-be priest decides to quit the seminary, all in the journey towards finding himself.
They realise they cannot lie to the world — and to themselves — that they will be alright living in seclusion. Tales of a mzungu in a faraway place leaving his well-paying job to venture into the forest in order to find himself and be happy are no longer shocking.
Closer home, I know several sane people who have done that.
Indeed, life is all about pursuit of happiness: making an effort to locate your happy triggers in the big wheel of life, regardless of how fast it moves.
As abstract as the concept of happiness occasionally sounds, it must be real otherwise people would not be committing suicide when they have millions lying in their bank accounts. It appears there must be more to life than having all the niceties money can buy.
That is why I disagree with a friend who says he is too busy wondering about school fees to care about happiness. He says happiness is a middle-class phenomenon and Africans are happy as long as they have food, water and roofs over their heads.
I will not agree that happiness is elusive; an illusion that only the idle chase. I refuse to agree that the only happy person is the mad one, and that is why he/she is always laughing.
Still I will ask is there anyone that is happy at all times? Are there not those moments of sadness or joy, or is it only a handful of us who experience that?
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