Blue

Window of opportunity.
It's blue on my side but maybe it is greener on the other side.
Today was really a blue day quite simply because I tried to do some studying. I confined myself indoors and tried to read at least one chapter of the bloody EU Law textbook. Alas, it was all in vain. The day was wasted sleeping and being deep in thought; which is the stage just before one actually dozes off. However, somewhere in between, I managed to consider some heavy stuff like the nuclear standoff between Bush and Iran, the recent elections in Singapore but more importantly, my happiness.
I wondered how I could be so happy here, without my car, having to bus everywhere, without a maid to do everything for me and living with such high prices and sometimes crappy weather. With all the intelligence that I could muster from my pea size brain, I came to the conclusion that the best things in life are free, and for everything else, there's Mastercard. But this is more than just some tacky saying like C'est la vie. There is some truth in this statement, yes, even the Mastercard bit. A couple of days ago I was talking to my friend online and he asked me how I get around in Denmark since I don't bicycle. I told him that I bus around or walk. He asked if I was sick and tired of busing around and whether I missed driving around in a nice car. Instinctively I said, No. I can almost imagine Stephane in the background going "Ca va pas no!" But yes, that was the truth.
I don't miss having an expensive piece of Italian engineering transport me around. I am and have been, for the past 9 months, quite happy walking around or having an old piece of scandinavian engineering move me and 40 others around even though not quite to my doorstep. Something is wrong isn't it. Car v. Bus? Bus over car? In Singapore the car would get a strong mandate over the bus any day and I mean stronger than 66.6%. I admit that I will probably not be quite as willing to bus around Singapore as I would in Denmark. Maybe the sweltering heat is one factor but I think that the most significant factor is that I would be happpier with a car than without. Why? Because I have been conditioned to believe that in order to be happy, one has to be well of. Because years of Singaporean education have honed me to seek the top job so as to maximise my income. But for the past year all that programming and all those material items have been removed. And I begin to appreciate the more important things in life. Which brings me on to a study done by the BBC on happiness. Britain is wealthier than it was 50 years ago but happiness is on a decline. Now the British government has a duty of care to ensure that the happiness of the population is preserved. I wonder if such a system will work back home?
So, after all that rambling, the point I'm trying to make is not that wealth can't make you happy. The point i'm trying to make is that only now, yes, only now do I realise this fact. I wonder how many of us really realise this truism.
Just One more month and I will be home and perhaps by then I will forget this lesson. Or more likely, perhaps by then I will still remember this lesson but choose not to heed it, as I rejoin the rat race. After all, for everything else there is always Mastercard.