To Paulo Coelho:

With regards to your commentary about how happiness is overrated, with all respect I beg to differ. In fact, the most immediate feeling I had after reading it was more of irritable than enlightenment.

It is easy to see the link between your article and Ellin’s 31st Dec 2009 article on “Seeking a Cure for Optimism”. I do agree that positivism and optimism needs to be realistic and cannot be too far-fetched. Indeed, there might be a certain group of people out in the world who are constantly bothered by masking that unhappiness they have. Yet I had a strong sense that both of you were nitpicking on the seemingly simplicities of life happiness.

All of us choose what we want to pay attention to and hence see them. If we choose to keep on probing the meaning of life, which is extremely subjective, we will never come to find out what is happiness. In response to your statement regarding “What will you do when that (everything) comes to an end?”, I will bravely defend those who believe that when life ends, as long as we have done enough to feel contented and fulfilled with our life accomplishments, that is enough.

I urge upon you to look at life simply, at people with face-value, and perhaps reduce the doubt you have for the things around you which I sense deeply from your commentary. We should do our best to stop imposing our own unhappy experiences onto the people around us, and believing they are feeling just like that. Instead, we can learn to embrace that perhaps, people are truly always striving to improve themselves, and actually being happy while doing that. There are people who enjoy working, relish the challenges they face in life, and soaking in the feeling of satisfaction upon achieving those goals in their lives.

I guess one major difference, if I was you while writing the commentary, would be the way how I phrase the questions at the end. Instead of them, I would sincerely ask or say “How can I plan my time such that I can earn enough money to afford this kind of lifestyle that I always yearn for?”, “The actress I am with in this photo, is truly a great performer, and I will learn to model after her.”, “I wonder if she knows she looks gorgeous in those clothes.”, and “I am glad everyone is smiling so much and enjoying themselves.”