"Can perfect happiness be found?

By Jasmine Loke Abdullah
After a string of dismal failures on the dating scene, I had almost convinced myself that I was not meant for marriage. By then, I had almost perfected my disdainful sneer whenever the idea of the happy couple cropped up, which was quite often.

I was prepared to face the world as a confident single woman.

Then I got married.

Till today, I’m still not quite sure what actually happened. I know that I fell in love with a difficult man who thought that marriage was a contract signed in hell. Somehow I made him change his mind, and suddenly I was married.

Since then I have been included in conversations among older ladies, who previously thought that the only question I was worthy of was whether I was married or not.

Aunties and uncles came up with all sorts of advice on how to keep the husband happy. Before this, they only shot me disapproving looks.

We had the white wedding with the white cake and the white dress (although a friend commented that white was just not me. Pffffttth!).

I was badly done up in war-paint and spent the entire evening worrying about falling off my 4-inch heels, but I grinned like a fool.

My husband, too, managed to have some fun even though he was extremely tired and had some work-related problems on his mind.

The wedding was a success. Then we went home to continue the rest of our lives together, which has been a blast.

Still, I wonder what would have happened if I had not chosen to take the vow. In fact, there have been times when I have found myself looking at my single friends with a stab of envy, especially since they always seemed to be busy with new partners and trying out new restaurants.

All the same I felt happy to spend time with this wonderful man who adored me. I did not understand why I felt the contradiction.

And so I embarked upon a journey to discover the truth behind my irrational discontent. It became important to me to unravel the seemingly contradictory emotions I was experiencing.

Parents and friends were roped in to give their opinion, strangers were accosted at wedding dinners. Even my two cats were not spared as I used them as an excuse to ask other cat owners their opinions.

As I had expected, most people thought that it was impossible for anyone to be completely happy. They felt that it was human nature to always be unsatisfied and suspicious that other people were somehow getting a better deal.

A good friend of mine suggested that marriage was an institution created by some perverse person bent on condemning the world to hopeless despair! The divorce rate in the world today was surely proof of this, she argued.

Friends of mine, who were not married or dating and were having a great time being single, wondered sometimes if they were missing out on the intimacy of a relationship.

Most of my married friends agreed that they sometimes missed not being one half of a couple. They did not know whether this meant that they were displeased or unfulfilled, but it was a feeling that persisted.

So it seemed that my conflicting emotions were normal, a very human reaction. I was sentenced to never ever being completely happy with my lot because I would always secretly covet another way of life.

Perhaps the question people should ask themselves is what “happiness” means after all. Why does happiness have to mean total satisfaction with every facet of one’s life?

I feel there is wisdom in knowing the difference between when to strive for more and when to know that things are as good as they’ll ever get. There is no such a thing as “perfect happiness” – neither for me nor for anybody else."


*the writings of this person does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the owner of this blog