Someone in my office declares, “Being happy is a choice”. The message is boldly splashed and flashed across a public notice board. Since I am writing this piece, I think it is obvious that the message got me thinking.
We live in an environment that extends far beyond our reach. Yet we are all interlinked by our six degrees. It is this exponential ‘six degrees’ that leaves us beyond ourselves, sometimes. While everyone tries to be or believe themselves to be active and ‘be in control’ of our destinies, our imaginations are often times gravitated by what is real. In other words, we are limited by our realities – our personal realities.
Personal realities are just that. They cannot be shared nor understood by someone else, no matter how empathetic one’s nature. As an extreme and somewhat morbid example, a cancer or terminally ill patient may be able to choose to be happy and make the most of each day, but one can no longer choose to live longer.
By the same measure, a person whose life in surrounded by circumstances that somehow joy and happiness is no longer an option, if one were to keep telling that person, “being happy is a choice” would tantamount to a slap in the face. Such behaviour is nothing less than incivility to the point of crass. Let us not forget that our individual lives are limited by our personal realities.
So, perhaps that person, in one’s personal glee and ecstasy, should consider that in a civilization where nothing is quite an absolute and pluralism is the order of the day, that maybe a little sensitivity might be in order…?
But then again, I have a nagging suspicion that, in the nature of my workplace’s cultural, the person who made the bold declaration might be a product from a certain order of faith and belief that has a propensity to negate what they consider as ‘others’.
Ahh (sigh)… what empathies… what sensitivities…
We live in an environment that extends far beyond our reach. Yet we are all interlinked by our six degrees. It is this exponential ‘six degrees’ that leaves us beyond ourselves, sometimes. While everyone tries to be or believe themselves to be active and ‘be in control’ of our destinies, our imaginations are often times gravitated by what is real. In other words, we are limited by our realities – our personal realities.
Personal realities are just that. They cannot be shared nor understood by someone else, no matter how empathetic one’s nature. As an extreme and somewhat morbid example, a cancer or terminally ill patient may be able to choose to be happy and make the most of each day, but one can no longer choose to live longer.
By the same measure, a person whose life in surrounded by circumstances that somehow joy and happiness is no longer an option, if one were to keep telling that person, “being happy is a choice” would tantamount to a slap in the face. Such behaviour is nothing less than incivility to the point of crass. Let us not forget that our individual lives are limited by our personal realities.
So, perhaps that person, in one’s personal glee and ecstasy, should consider that in a civilization where nothing is quite an absolute and pluralism is the order of the day, that maybe a little sensitivity might be in order…?
But then again, I have a nagging suspicion that, in the nature of my workplace’s cultural, the person who made the bold declaration might be a product from a certain order of faith and belief that has a propensity to negate what they consider as ‘others’.
Ahh (sigh)… what empathies… what sensitivities…
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