was suddenly everything quite different, because everything remained the same. Just that I was aware of something that was intuitively so far. I even spoke it out. It was like an underline of the existing.
I lay in bed, my children were already asleep. Next to me the dogs, and otherwise only silence. I read. Sunken, timeless. Then I turned the book over and looked up. In front of the open window I saw the clear starry sky. Everything was good. Rest, peace, be at the moment. But what was that? What word was there for this? Happiness. That was the happiness. That which is simply there, which we all too often do not notice. So self-evident. From enough. To eat. To do. To drink. The roof over your head and a warm, gentle coexistence. It is so unspectacular that it is hardly perceptible. But woe something is missing. Nothing was missing. I do not want it to slip into a self-understanding, because I cannot think of it when it is no longer. I do not want to hold onto it, but at least consciously see it. It is now. That is enough.
The greatest happiness is worth nothing if we already think of a possible misfortune at the moment.
The greatest happiness has no chance when we are afraid of the loss.
How little chance then has this little, everyday happiness, which is really not worth mentioning. Allegedly. That is worth mentioning. So I said it, say it: “I’m happy.” Just so, even nobody heard it. It means nothing definite, only being present at the moment in which it is. Again and again.
“I am happy,” I said, and then I thought of the misery in the world. There is so much of it, out there, behind silence and quiet and peace, millions of creatures of every species are encroached, abused, raped, exploited, humiliated and killed. If you just open your eyes a little and see this, that cannot leave you indifferent. I know it. Of course not in every detail, but what I know, what is transmitted day by day at pictures, that is bad enough. And then I dare to be happy?
Yes, I dare, because my compassion for a suffering I do not experience makes no sense. Because my suffering, my misfortune, no one else takes away the suffering, nor brings anyone else happiness. All I could do was add another one to the many sorrows. An unnecessary. Nothing is more meaningless. For those who are themselves entangled in suffering and misfortune have neither the sight nor the freedom to help others. For then the whole world is pain and misery. But when I feel myself grounded, lifted and trusted, solidified in my life, then I can open myself and help others.
“I am happy,” I also concede to myself, is to please me. Because I can only be there for others, even if I am there for me. Everything else is at best vanity. “I’ve sacrificed myself, for my family,” says the frustrated housewife. Sacrifice to keep oneself in self-compassion. Sacrifices not to have to give up whining.
Life is so beautiful for many of us, if we allow it and say, from time to time, if it suits: “I am happy!”
