The happiness we refute

“Do you want to go outside and play?” “No,” he replied irritated.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” “No”. His agitation increased with every proposal he refuted.

The truth is, little Josh didn’t know what he wanted. He was in one of those moods were nothing was good enough but even that nothing could not make him feel better. He was missing something but could not precisely state what that was.

His aunt came in the door after leaving him alone for five minutes petting Thunder, the small poodle that was lying on the couch perplexed with the situation.

She brought him a bowl with two scoops of ice cream. Ice cream always made things better for young and old. It was a sort of remedy for whatever you had, no matter if you couldn’t even define the problem yourself.

Josh relished every spoonful he tasted. When it was over, he turned to his aunt and said “Can we take Thunder out for a walk?” She nodded relieved and satisfied.

Sometimes it’s not the details that we’re missing, but the action. When our mental or sentimental world is in turbulence, our mind gets upset too. It’s not that we are not content with what we have. We are just longing for the reassurance that we matter and that things are not as bad as we often make them out to be. After all, we are only as happy as we allow ourselves to believe we are.

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Decisions, decisions…

The problem with being indecisive is that you don’t know what to do. It’s normal when you are faced with a tough decision that will affect your life. But when it concerns a seemingly easy decision, like for example what ice cream flavours to choose, then it becomes a problem, particularly because by the time you finally make up your mind, the ice cream parlour has closed and you are left with no ice cream.

Or for example when you go out to shop one thing and see a million others that you would like to purchase. Not being able to decide instantly means you end up with a large shopping spree and an often (over)charged credit card. Sometimes even without that one thing you had gone to buy in the first place.

However, things change when there are important decisions to make, such as where you want to live, for example, or what you want to do with your life. Lack of determination means you are forced to cohabitate with a confusion constantly stirring inside of you; one day it will erupt and it won’t be pretty.

Indecision is a torment. They say it is preferable to make a decision, no matter how wrong it may turn out to be, rather than not take any action at all. When you lurch from indecision to doubt of whether you’ve taken the right decision, to changing your mind, and eventually never deciding, you are in essence living in a nightmare, where in the end you end up exhausted by the internal struggle that is wearing out your psyche.

It is actually harder than it seems to make decisions, maybe that is why policy-makers are so highly paid – they have to decide for the fate of so many people. It takes strength, courage and a bit of audacity to state a choice and stand by it. It takes even more boldness to decide on something and then make it the right decision.