When Can We be Truly Happy?

by Laura Hein

We cannot sustain true happiness. As my theology teacher quoted from a famous person, “a person was in crisis, is in crisis or is going to be in crisis.” Problems will constantly arise within our families, from academics, or organization work and they will undoubtedly ruin the good day we were having. But the good news is true happiness is possible. But just in a brief moment.

Personally, we are truly happy when all our needs and wants are fulfilled. By the sound of it, this may seem to lean towards the idea of materialism, but I hope you try to eliminate that particular view as you read this. Here, I refer to our need of our grandmothers to get well soon, or the parents’ want for their children to graduate with honors to secure a good job and a good life. These needs and wants at discussion encompass all kinds of needs and wants of a person. Wants are just as important as needs. There may be a married woman out there with the most wonderful husband and children. She has a simple life with all the necessities to survive. Yet, the mom can’t afford her children the thirty-thousand pesos cell phone that the children always tell her about their friends holding at school. She knows that it is not her need to buy for them but she wants to spoil her kids sometimes too.

At a time in our lives, we will have one need or want that is the most important among all other needs and wants. When this need or want is fulfilled, we are truly happy. During the week the ACET results were announced to be released, the whole time I was inching for the verdict. I’m sure at that time, our biggest need was to get into the Ateneo. Possibly, at the same time we might have wanted to buy a new bag or clothes for the start of college life. We might have needed to finish off the last year of high school with a high QPI. Or we might have wanted to have our high school friends to attend the same universities with us. There were obviously other worries but the main focus was on passing the ACET. When I found that I had passed, there was a moment of elation that was so great and overwhelming that all others needs and wants vanished. I was no longer worried about the amount of difficult academic work approaching, meeting new and very different people or just basically entering a big community.

In my opinion, at moments like this, we are truly happy. We, humans, are as already described many times by us, greedy and selfish. It is impossible for us to have each and every of our needs and wants. It is impossible. The only way we can be truly happy is to forget about these needs and wants for a moment. Once we let them collapse, we find true happiness.