A Life of Happiness

Recently I was hit by depression so hard that I almost squeezed my life out of this physical body that I am living in. For a while, I thought that this world will be better off without me, and in fact, actually, everyone's lives go on even when I am not around.

It is true. I withdrew from Facebook, save for a few friends who decided to reach out to me, especially a sister from Colorado who kept convincing me that I have done my best. It took me a while to pull myself back together, and I have been doing all these things just to get myself back on track:

a. Eating guava. I read somewhere that guavas regulate our hormones and make them more normal. I need that.

b. Getting massages. The first massage was a painful experience, because I had too many knots in my muscles that had been causing me so much pain for so long. The second was better, and it will be in my monthly plans from now onwards to relieve my shoulder pains.

c. Eating vegetarian food mostly. There are conflicting reviews about vegetarianism and depression. Some studies said that it is good, some studies said that it is bad. But looking back, I remember myself being calm when I was being vegetarian mostly. When I got depressed, I was trying out a lot of meat dishes with the new halogen oven, but recently I have been making vegetarian dishes again and I felt a lot better.

d. Throwing out routines. Sure, if you look at LinkedIn and all that articles talking about successful people, you will see that they emphasize on "routine" especially morning ones. I'd say, forget it. The stress of not being able to stay in what you planned is the biggest stress of all. Besides, achieving all these things are just not going to be forwarded when we leave this current existence.

e. Connecting with the Buddha. I have always been doing this, and during this period of time, it is more so as I realised that I had almost abandoned my practice due to the demands of daily life. Almost every moment I listen to the Dhamma talks, and listen even more carefully this time than ever. There are many discoveries from this intent listening, not by forced analysis of what the Dhamma master said, but just by simply listening. The discoveries just surface themselves like the reflection on the lake during a full moon night.

f. Staying away from Social Media. It helps a lot. These days my social media is just there, but I am not "in" it. Turning off, I found that I am still pretty busy and running short of time. However, without the social media phone scrolling, I feel in tuned with the tasks.

One day I guess I will just delete my Facebook account. Not sure when, but it may just happen because I don't really need it. Right now, I am pretty peaceful with the world just by staying away from news and Facebook feeds about news. Everyone may have a lot of negative things about the world, but I am at peace with it at this moment. I wish for this peaceful relationship to last with this world so long as my current existence is still valid.