Tweetums Gonzalez's article in today's issue of Philippine Star

Modern Living
Happiness from within
SECOND WIND By Barbara C. Gonzalez
Saturday, September 8, 2007

One of the most important lessons I have learned is that happiness comes from within. Sometimes other people make us happy but only for a short while. Then something happens and we are sad again. Real happiness is rarely given, shared, or supplied by someone else. The most effective way to create happiness is to create it ourselves. Look inside you, find out what makes you laugh, what makes you cry, what makes you grateful for life. Find out how you feel about everything.

In this life your emotions are important. Forget what Descartes said about emotions not playing a role in life. They are always there, only many of us, especially men, are unaccustomed to looking at them. So their analysis of life is often incomplete. ..

I used to have a very good friend. We were not classmates but one of my dear classmates asked me why we did not make friends. I thought, all right, I’ll give it a try and for a while it worked wonderfully. When I needed help to move into my Calamba house, she helped me. When she needed help to move into her house in the boondocks, I helped her. It was lovely house in the middle of nowhere, on an almost deserted island on the sea. It had a lot of snakes around and every night I drank scotch to see me through. But in the course of our many conversations I happened to mention that another friend of mine, chairman of a multinational company, was retiring soon. It was just something mentioned in passing, not important to both of us, or so I thought.

Then, months later in the middle of the morning, she rang me asking for my help. She had an American friend who was interested in the chairmanship position of my friend. Could I help her arrange an interview? At first I was stunned. Then I was genuinely offended and ultimately angry. “Wait a minute,” I said, “he is chairman of a big company. Do you think there are no succession plans? And how dare you ask me to set up the appointment? It’s just so unethical. No, I will not do it.”

Then I thought about it further and decided I did not like to have a friend like her. Apparently she looked at my life, the big and small details, and considered them worth bandying about to people I did not know. I require more respect from a friendship. I e-mailed her saying exactly that and terminated the friendship.

Many years later, I saw her again but she was like the wind to me. I could not recover from the offense I took, the offense she caused. On and off I wondered if I was cruel but there was something in me that could not overlook the offense. “You felt used,” Sophie said. “And you don’t like being used.” Suddenly that meant so much to me. Yes, that was it. I felt used, trespassed. “…as we forgive those who trespass against us . . .” a quote from Our Father. Actually, I have forgiven her but I don’t want to be close to her. She no longer makes me feel safe.

I will comment on this article shortly as it clarifies a lot of what I feel about certain people in my life.