Different Approach

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1. Different approach to happiness
2. Could have been worse
3. Inspiring French story #1
4. Inspiring French story #2
5. Inspiring French story #3
6. Break the pattern!
7. Write something

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~ Different approach to happiness ~

Got to say, “Angels of the same kind fly together”. Surprisingly, I found someone here of the same kind of wavelength as mine. Bizarre.

And my buddy slowly unfolded one of the saying he got from one of his poetic friend. And it goes something like this.

“As one gets older, one gets happier. Why? Each day I wake up, I smile. For I am one day closer to death.”

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~ Could have been worse ~

We remained silence for a few minutes and indeed, I do respect someone who can derive happiness that way.

He then resumed and unfolded the next one.

“Whenever we encounter unhappiness, we always think of the ‘could have been better’. That way, we become more and more depressed. Why not think of the ‘could have been worse’? That way, we can achieve the neutral point (ultimate void or nothingness I guess).”

The way I think of it is that when our life is having its downside, making ourselves feeling sad will just bring life to a lower point. But if we can think of the ‘could have been worse’, we are then ‘looking up’ and hence bring life to the – neutral point.

This thinking has actually changed my buddy’s life dramatically. Whenever he is down, he thinks of what could have been worse. This may as well change my life. Hope it changes yours as well.

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~ Inspiring French story #1 ~

Following to what my buddy has told me, he then shared some of the French humor with me. It was kind of hard for me to understand immediately but he explained patiently.

Maybe some of you have already heard this one or something similar.

One day, a man (possibly French) was lying on his bed waiting for his wife to return. When his wife returned, she spoke anxiously, “You won’t believe this. Today, when our neighbor returned to his house, he found his wife sleeping with another man.”

He relaxed and replied, “Could have been worse.”

His wife then went on, “And his wife took the gun and shot her husband.”

The same reply, “Could have been worse.”

“She then shot her boyfriend.”

“Could have been worse.”

“And she shot herself!” his wife exclaimed.

“Could have been worse.”

“What could ever be worse?” his wife burst out.

“I was sleeping with her yesterday,” the man replied.

When my buddy finished his story, the immediate answer was “So?”. Then I realized that I was wrong in interpreting the story as a joke for it is not funny at all.

Two points well noted are (1) this man could have been dead if he was sleep with her neighbor today instead; (2) this man was honest to his wife.

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~ Inspiring French story #2 ~

My buddy then went on and I have to admit that you have to have a little bit of French humor in order to understand this one.

One day, a wife (again, very likely French) was seeing her therapist.

“Our relationship is getting worse!”, said the wife.

“Would you like to tell me why?”, asked the therapist.

“He always tells me that my cooking is no good. Not as good as his mother,” the wife replied.

“Go and take some cooking lesson then,” suggested the therapist.

One week later, the wife returned to the therapist and this time, she told him that her husband complaint that her ironing skill was never as good as his mother.

Again, the therapist suggested, “Go and take some ironing class.”

Another week went by and the wife returned feeling even more depressed.

“My husband thinks that I can never dust the house as good as his mother,” said the wife.

The therapist stopped for a moment and suggested seriously, “Tonight, dress in the sexiest black underwear with black stocking. Sit in front of him with legs open wide. I am certain that it will work.”

So, the wife took her therapist’s advise and when her husband saw her in black, he exclaimed, “Is my mother dead?”

Well, hard to understand right? I had the same feeling as well. First you must not take this as a joke. Secondly, you must know that it is the French culture that they will dress in black whenever there is a death in the family.

The moral of the story is that no matter how much this wife tries to get better, she can never replace her mother-in-law’s role. Her husband is just obsess and in love with his mother. That gives me some deep thoughts in the fact that sometimes in life, no matter how much you try to be better in order to suit your lover or your friends, you can never reach the ‘best’ for it may not be reachable at all.

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~ Inspiring French story #3 ~

Like the English always make jokes out of the Irish. The French do the same to the Belgian.

One day, a Belgian took his friend (definitely a French) for a movie in which he has already watched four times.

Then came the exciting part about the duel between a Cowboy and an Indian. The Belgian turned to his friend and challenged, “I bet that the Cowboy will win this time.” Not knowing that the Belgian has already watched the movie four times, his friend agreed to bet with him.

In the end, the Indian shot the Cowboy and the Belgian lost the bet.

The Belgian walked out of the theater and sighed, “I thought the Cowboy would have learnt this time.”

Got this one? You can treat this a joke and laugh at the Belgian. Another way of thinking is that in everyday life, we commit to recurrent habits all the time and we just simply act upon unconsciously.

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~ Break the pattern! ~

Breaking the recurrent habits and break the pattern. Everyday, we are dominated by the flooding number of advertisements on air, on TV and in every corner of the streets, every page of the magazines. Our day to day work further enhances our life into habits and patterns. What are you going to do about it?

Break the pattern!

I though I am a wired type of person. But I think I have met my challenge. Two weeks ago, my buddy actually blindfolded himself for a whole day just to experience the momentary lost of vision. And he broke the pattern. In the end, he feels a lot better and learns how to appreciate the gift of vision.

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~ Write something ~

After dinner, just before we stepped into the train station, my buddy told me that once he was reading a book published by an American poem writer who writes (or wrote) in French and English. This American writer suggested that once in one’s life, one has got to write a novel. This is for one to read later on in one’s life.

And I have already started writing another novel one month ago. Isn’t that amazing?

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