The Pursuit of Happinesss

Caught this Oscar winner Woody Allen movie - 'Hannah and her sisters' on the torrent. Typical New York drama set in the 80's - the perky fast spoken Woody Allen ones... like all his movies portrays the mundane everyday things but conveys something deeper very nonchalantly. Allen plays himself, a hyper movie producer and a divorcee who happens to be a hypochondriac. An egotistical character who claims to be a sapiosexual (but will only date beautiful insecure women) and over time sees a severe want of promise in almost every woman he dates. A visit to the doctor for a migraine check up leaves him petrified as the doctor very cryptically asks him to do a "few tests .....just to rule out a few things"... Allen goes into a frenzy, he's convinced he's going to die, is cribbing to his secretary in this bewildered, tortured tone about how unfair life is, just this morning he was going about his life happily, with not a care, minding his own business, full of beans and buck so to say.....The secretary gently chides him and reminds him that just this morning he was very upset with someone and was going on and on about how nothing is working out properly, how bad business is, how unprofessional and volatile are the people around him etc.

Allen turns around and swiftly retorts -

" I was happy, I just didn't know it."

before resuming his indignant banter on the unfairness of life.

Truth be told, most of us are no different, may be the degrees vary. Happiness ain't good for us. We demand euphoria. Life as we know it seems to be the most ephemeral thing around us, a fact most of us refuse to acknowledge. People go about it with an attitude of immortality and love to complain about the mundane.

Imagine yourself in your last moments, as you lie contemplating the choices you had made in this life, what would be the one thing you would wish you had done more of,  close your eyes and think of the five people you would find it very difficult to say goodbye to... as you realize that you are never ever going to see them again, that one single thought might be the answer to a lot of restlessness and turmoil within us.