Is there really such a thing as ‘Rules to being happy’?
COLUMN: Express it by Imane
BY IMANE FAWZY NOFAL | Twitter: @Imane2express
Photo: Radu Razvan Gheorghe
I woke up late as usual at 6:45 am, headed to the bathroom, looked in the mirror to see if I looked beautiful when I woke up. My hair was shaggy, the purple coloured highlights had moved three inches down as my hair had grown in the past months. I went on to wake my twins up. It wasn’t an easy task though. In fact, it has never been. They always laze about in bed, refusing to get up. I didn’t have much time to play around with them, so I carried myself to the kitchen, started warming up their milk. I added honey to their milk because it is currently well-known how bad white sugar is for everyone. I huffed angrily at the thought of honey and white sugar; for I never knew how to always make foods with natural sweeteners. I prepared their lunch boxes; added a cheese sandwich for one and granola bars for the other. I smiled at this, my boys have been different and unique since the day they were born. A short drive to school was accomplished after some nagging over ‘you need to pack your school bag immediately’, ‘I will remove food from the table in five minutes’, ‘you need to be ready in 10 minutes, we are super-duper late’ … etc
Back home, all alone, I thought of how difficult my morning was. I needed to unwind. I brought my scented candle, placed under my LCD screen after lighting it. I then got the HDMI plugged into my laptop, going through a couple of sun salutation yoga postures. It felt amazing!
Before long, it was time to prepare lunch. I headed to the kitchen and started to declutter my sink by placing all dirty dishes into my dishwasher. I remembered how hubby and I had argued about buying the dishwasher. I am so happy I could do what I wanted. I started preparing a béchamel pasta with minced meat. My heart was dancing, it was time to use the Peugeot nutmeg mill I bought from Tavola and my Kenwood hand mixer to chop the tomatoes. I am into kitchen gadgets, so I buy things even when I know I won’t use them quite often.
Boys were back from school at 1 pm. I made sure food was ready then. They went on to eat grumbling because I had not fried some chicken panè before they came. I started to think about all the positive and peaceful parenting tips I had read these past years. After lunch we headed to their room for some cuddles and reading. Our day went on peacefully and at 8 pm, my boys were in bed and I was warming a toast slice to eat with my favourite Gouda cheese and cup of green tea with mint.
In a parallel world, she woke up at 5 am. She couldn’t be late for she never knew how difficult her transportation may get. She woke her kids up harshly. They immediately rose out of their mattresses on the floor. She made each one a cheese sandwich; praying that she would have enough for each one of her five children.
At the houses she worked, people gave her food. She was so delighted that she would provide lunch for the family that day. She just needed to make a basic tomato sauce to prepare the potato stew she was planning to cook. At home, she carelessly washed some rotten tomatoes and threw them in a rusty strainer. She started squeezing them into the pan to get the juice out. There wasn’t much of it though. As long as there is table salt, the food would be complete and perfect.
Her kids were back, food served and it was time for homework. One gruff shout from her vocal chords had them all settled around the table studying. She thought about tomorrow, the food she would have to provide for her five children.
If you are sitting on your laptop reading this article at this moment, you most probably belong to the group in the first three paragraphs — securely living. You might even be curious and do some research to find out how Peugeout (a renowned French cars brand) started making mills. You might even go further by ordering one on Amazone, because you didn’t know nutmeg mills existed on the planet. You might look for yoga videos online to start off a relaxation series.
But the people of the next paragraphs are not here. They are not reading; not because they don’t have a laptop or because they can’t read but because they don’t have the time. Mornings wrap them up quickly and deliver them to the night, to the next morning … etc.
In one of the tests I took to be a writer on a website, I was asked to write creatively on the ’10 rules to be happy’. I started:
“1. We should not always be happy. Happiness is not the default mode you were created with. Peacefulness, however, is. It is the key element in our modes and it is the secret to why we get so happy when we are really happy.
2. Happiness is not money. I know I might sound like a broken record. And I know you haven’t forgotten this, you have just set it at the back of your mind in a dark place while running after mundane pleasures that usually depend on money. So again, let me pull your ear and tell you that happiness cannot be bought. Greeneries, the sky, sun, moon, stars and mother nature give us happiness for free. Smiles on our children’s faces make our hearts dance for no apparent reason.”
Internet has caught us up well inside its webs, the same way TV has for many years since its invention. However internet is further deluding and trapping us while we are amazed about the thousand cool and new stuff we find out there. We spend our time trying to get Facebook feedbacks on our friends’ latest news and pictures. We need to congratulate on birthdays, engagements and weddings. We are busy liking, commenting, sharing and paying respects to our friends. We tend to look for easy ways to ‘lose weight’, ‘be happy’, ‘get rich’, ‘get a job’ … etc. Therefore, it is no surprise that I found out ‘top 10 ways to …’ sort of articles mostly trending online. That is what people are looking for.
People are the creators of walls. They built them to protect themselves from nature’s furious rages. They went too far though. They constructed houses on top of houses, towers beside towers, shopping malls next to shopping malls, cars on top of cars, and they swiftly moved between those square walls. They are detached from the community and now willingly sit behind those counters/bars that look seemingly like luxurious spaces with the best gadgets.
The fact is bitter. There are no 10 rules to be happy. There are no 7 easy steps to lose weight. There is no easiest method to lose belly bumps after delivery. Know what else, there is a community out there waiting for you to stir your but from in front of your gadgets and help them out. Those people are not waiting for your fingers to fumble with your mobile to get your favourite singer back to the stage of ‘Arabs’ve got talent’, ‘Arab idol’, ‘The voice’ or whatsoever the TV show you’re idled in front. They are waiting because they simply need to live.
Imane Fawzy Nofal is a translator, News Reporter, Copywriter, Editor, Proofreader (Arabic<>English) and mother of twin boys. She is an Egyptian living in Bahrain and blogs at Express It 2 Live It. Imane regularly shares her thoughts on human interactions and real life experiences through her DUNIA Mag column Express it by Imane. Imane’s first language is Arabic.
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