It is often said that happiness comes from the inside. That if you are miserable, the feeling won’t disappear even if you are in the most beautiful place on earth.
Well, I cannot really argue with that — it happened to me when I was in Bali. The island of gods, where everyone was enjoying life in paradise. Where my son was barefoot and free, where my husband was full steam on his crafts, where all the friends we met realised their luck to be there and made the most out of it. But I was doing some soul searching, resisting the change and not surrendering to the island life. I was miserable inside and the outside beauty was a little lost on me.
Would it have been better at home though, in the grey city? I don’t think so. I would have been rushing, dodging the cold raindrops, cursing the traffic and the rude people. At least in Bali, I was outside all day in the warmth — it did wash away a little bit of my worries. I did not enjoy it as much as I could have — but I felt much better there with my state of mind than in a cold, rainy, concrete jungle.
Yes, happiness comes from the inside. But we are not impermeable to the outside — whether we like it or not, outside factors do affect us, and sometimes in good ways. Why not get all the help we can? If we cannot find the light here, then why not give it a try there?
My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there ~ Rumi
