To be happy or not be happy?

Sounds like a stupid question? Well, ask yourself deeply when was the last time you truly, really let yourself just be, happy?

Lately I have the fortune to ponder, and did some hard (not nice at all) thinking about what the heck I want, in specific goal-blue-print-all-serious-business-plan.

I guess in the midst of planting media interviews for my fellow songstresses, and stage heroes and respected thespians, I question my place in this world that worship fame, money and power...not in that order but they kind of mean the same thing?

Money = power = fame

Like a lost hippie stuck in the fast-paced money-highway, I duck in fear, afraid that I get run down by the speeding cars. I asked myself the reason why I don't desire fancy cars and a fancy career in an international opera house. Am I lazy or just plain unambitious?

Is being simple-minded and having low expectations in life frowned on? I can't deny that it seems to look a little weird in this society, to want just enough money, not a lot; to want just, a little, to be happy and satisfied with little. Since when we give any attention to the simple folks in their simple houses who are just living out their simple lives?

Apparently I have been questioning myself with issues I used to preach to others. I said to others life's mission is to be happy. Apart from higher enlightenment, happiness comes from being contended and satisfied with oneself and one's life. I used to perk up easily by simple, little things, silly things like a hot bowl of instant noddles and my laundry all done and hanging out in the sun. I still get excited by a pack of chips nowadays but I look around and see my friends who have plans to buy that nice house and talk about dream cars and I feel incredibly, doubtful.

I don't have to be doubtful of who I am and what I like, if I'm happy. It's not a bad thing that I'm a happy person now, in this moment. I always wonder if I would still be this happy and contended in future, I guess I can't really solve that problem...can I? I can't live in future.

I saw this quote somewhere, years ago, I wrote it on the wall board of my first rented pad:

"Being happy is not a result, it's a choice."

happy face, a candid shot from years before...