My Agay’s Happiness

A happy person has a happy life. A happy person is one who has fulfilled his unfulfilled dreams. A happy person has fewer wants and honorably stops his desires at some point.  The best example of a happy person was my late Agay. I never saw him, but I learned from my father that he was a happy person. He had nothing but cheerful smiles on his lips, always.   "What makes him put a smile on his face every time?" I asked my father. "It is nothing but happiness," my father said.

One morning, my young Agay went to his neighbor's house with his white teeth visible even from another hill. What nonsense—my Agay smiling to himself! And guess what he did inside the neighbor's home? He comforted a sad girl with his smiles. He won her love through his smile. And my Agay was the happiest person to beget her

During my school days, I wrote many essays on a happy person. "The men who live happily make others happy. They are kind and friendly to others. They never hurt others or think badly of them. They don't push their time back or forth—they exist in the present with lots of vigor, energy, contentment, and peace. Those who are rich are not happy because their wants and needs are greater. They always live in tenses and problems… and blah blah."

Looking back at some of my points above, my Agay fit in very much—or largely—there. My Agay did the right thing in the right order for his future wife. I can imagine my Agay with his best positive values. The way he walked, the way he talked, the way he behaved—all of it would have impressed others. He would have been called a laughing Buddha. Besides, he also sang distorted religious hymns that would make his wife laugh every so often. His face would have always been bright, never showing the darker slices of life. His truthfulness was the weapon behind his smile. His choices were few. He took less and gave more to his wife, I suppose.

"Was there happiness in the past, then?" I asked my father, who looked grim compared to his own father's life.  "Now everybody is happy, and I have no time for unhappiness. This GNH sucks!" my father said covetously.

Anyway, there is truth in Alexander Pope's words: "Happy the man whose wish and care a few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air in his own ground." Such was my Agay's life—hard, but happy.