What is Happiness?

There have been a far bit of talks during about what is happiness after the much publicity about Bhutan royal wedding and at the recent Singapore parliamentary sessions.  

I have also asked myself numerous times in various stages of my life what is happiness for me. When I was sick and struggling to help myself to basis daily needs like eating and walking effortlessly then, my only wish and happiness to me is to able to do these basis tasks independently. Health is the only thing that matters then.  Life seems so simple at that moment.  But being human beings, we have an insatiable appetite.  Once we have health, we take it for granted and want more of other things - self-esteem, beauty, love, money, status, power, fame.... etc. We keep thinking only when we have these things we can be happy. And we keep wanting and wanting, with the thought that we need more of these "things" even though we have already have the other things.

I suppose as human beings, looking for ways to satisfy one's needs is our innate nature. No one is spared from this, not even for people who are seeking enlightenment or nirvana (which I intepret as freedom from all worldly concerns).  Englightment or nirvana is already a want or a need for that person who are seeking for it. It is not wrong to seek ways to satisfy one's need. Guess things start to go wrong and people feel unhappy when the needs and wants of a person become excessive and the act of seeking these needs by that person have inflicted pain/hurt to others.

I think a main key to happiness is the ability to feel contented and feel blessed with things that we already have.  It does not mean we will stop learning and improving ourselves.  But being appreciative of things and people around us, we are more likely to be at peace at oneselves (thus happier) and will be less likely to fall into the trap of "excessive needs or wants" and hence are also less likely to cause hurt to others in the search of our needs or wants.   

Theory has said that SLE may be triggered by stress. People who are less satisfied with things or people around them are supposedly less happy and more stressed.  So perhaps one way to overcome SLE or as a preventive measure is to first learn to be happy by feeling contented and blessed with things we have and not fall into the cycle of excessive needs.

Stress Triggered Lupus?

My close friend texted me to say based on her doc she saw during her regular medical review , lupus can be stress triggered.  So she advised me to stay relax not only for now but especially when I go back to work.   She understood very well that stresses, negative emotions like fear, anxiety would always ensue in the workplace.

I told her not to worry about me and joked that given the research and reading on lupus I have done so far, I am a quarter of a lupus' expert, if not a third. While it is not conclusive, stress seems to one of top triggers for lupus flare. Given stress means different things to different people and my GP once told me there would always be stresses in life, but the key in the degree is how the individuals manage or cope with these stresses.  For one who manages the stress well, that stress is motivational and healthy.  But for another person who is facing difficulty in managing that same kind of stress, then that stress becomes destructive.  So now I am kind of hypothesising personality or character such as those with Type A personality traits (i.e. perfectionist, competitive, impatient, time urgency, achievement-oriented)  can a predisposition to trigger lupus.  Since one is always so tense-up and work up, the immune system also follows.  So overtime, the system also gets "job" burnout, loses focus, slowly goes haywire and finally cannot even differentiate the foreign or own cells in your body!
      

Anyway, I cannot change the fact that I have lupus now.   But what I can do is to adjust my lifestyle and career to work around it positively.  Sometime I wonder my positiveness now is the side effect of prendisolone (since euphoria is one such side effect!).  I do not know for how long I can sustain this positive attitude, especially when lupus flares up and you are suffering from it. But I certainly do not like to make my loved ones suffered because of me.  Having been through 2 major illness within a short span of 6 months, you would know that when you are ill, the ones who are feeling more stressed may be your loved ones as they have to watch you suffer. 

I saw this quote somewhere that I cannot remember: "the happiest people are not those who have the best of everything but they are ones who make the best of those things that they have".  So to be happy, I just have to make the best of the current me! Love ourselves so that we can love others.