The Measure of Happiness

How do you measure happiness? More specifically, how do you measure other people's happiness? 

Whenever I enter a discussion about this with my parents, we always end up in arguments. They insist that with what I don't have, it must be hard for me to be happy. I don't have an asset, I'm not married so I can only rely on myself to support my life, I have a steady job with not-so-steady income, and every once in a while, I expose myself to some financial risk because of my insisting on doing the hard task of promoting classical music in the community. So how can you be happy? 

It's funny to me how people always think they can measure other people's happiness. I have a reformed gay friend who's now happily married (to a wonderful woman) with an adorable little girl. He perpetually posts pictures of his little family and they all look blissfully happy. But my friends from the gay community always said he must be faking it, as he is betraying his true identity. But how do thet know? What makes people so sure that he hasn't already thought about the trade-off? His denouncing his homosexuality for an exchange with family life might be the best decision he made in his life. Who are we to judge? 

I used to work closely with a very difficult, demanding, hardworking French guy who was leading a cultural institute in Bandung. He was very exact in his command and did not want to take nonsense from anyone. He came before everyone else and left after everyone arrived home, every single day of the week. His staffs naturally hated him. Once he was sitting alone during lunch and a lady who worked for him said that that's the price of being such a perfectionist boss. You don't have friends to have lunch with. But then again, I looked at him. He didn't look miserable, in fact, I think he kind of enjoyed his alone time of the day where no one bug him with anything. He probably chose to eat alone. Yet people easily and quickly think he must be unhappy.

It frustrates and annoys me a lot when people start to judge other people's life. In most cases, people can only measure things by their own standard, very few can really know and understand what is held as valuable by others. It angers me a lot when my parents start to judge my life based on their standard, when it's obviously clear that we are standing on a different page. And why would you want to measure other people's happiness anyway, when all you need to care about is your own?

What Remains at the End

My Grandma lost her house today. She moved in with her 7 kids in 1968 and in 1972 a man came to the house and claimed that he has bought the house from the previous owner, a Dutch lady and showed her a receipt as a proof of payment. He could not show any legal certificate as a sign of ownership of the house, just that small piece of paper and what supposed to be an easy, clear-as-daylight case of fraud developed into a 44-year long legal battle up to supreme court. Unfortunately, the man was an ex colonel at the army so he could get a lot of backing to support his meagre document to win this case. Today we found out that this case was sponsored by Djarum Kudus, a gigantic tobacco company who wanted to acquire the house. They have managed to pay all the legal officers involved in this case, from lawyers to judges, to make the end result unfavorable for us. They also obviously paid the local newspaper to create a fictional story about how we hard we fought for the execution of the house today when in fact our big family have removed all of our belongings last night and left the house empty this morning. 

My mum and her remaining siblings fought long and hard for justice but we lost at the end. When they began their battle, they knew that they were probably fighting a lost cause, since it's well known how corrupt Indonesian legal system is. It's all a game of money and power. How much you're having, or who is standing behind you. For common family such as ours, all we have is legal documents, the law, and the belief that justice should be done even if it takes blood and sweat and your good night sleeps.

Everyone in the family is so familiar with this case because it's been haunting us for years. My cousins, my brother and I know all too well about the suffering our parents must endure to keep my grandma at the house and to defend what is ours by right and law. When our parents decide to give up the house last night, it was strange how relieved we, or at least I, felt. We're sad and disappointed for sure, but after all that has been done to us, we thought about it and we didn't lose much at the end. Sure, the house is valuable. The land itself will cost IDR 5 billion because of its location. But it's just money. But our family believe that what is ours by destiny will come to us, no matter what. Maybe it will come back to us in another time, in another form, but if it doesn't, we still have other things that are more precious than that. We have our family, our dignity, and most of all our integrity. 

I was out last night when my grandma was brought to our house by my mum. I was literally tiptoing to her room to check how she's doing, and she was amazingly calm and steadfast. I asked her how she was feeling, and she said she was all right. She said the house is not hers anyway. God gave it to her and she was allowed to stay there for a very long while, and now God wants it back. Still God is kind because she isn't left homeless. She has many homes to go to now, and she can still sleep under a roof in her warm bed. 

No matter what you've lost, there are always things to be grateful for. Because no matter what is taken from you, there are always more things given to you. My grandma's most profound words were: "I will not be crying over something that I will not be taking to the grave." Her resolution to let this go have taught me that the most important things we will be accounted for is everything that cannot be measured in money.