In Pursuit of Happiness

As humans, we crave to be happy. Our main objective in life is to find a way to be happy. The whole course of my life, I mean at least, during the past 22++ years, I have done many things in the name of happiness; things that I thought and still think that would make me happy. I shall now write what things that I thought and still think would make me happy.

First and foremost, I always think that the road to happiness would be the day I become slim. Super skinny. A Zero size body. Oh, how I wish that! I think that by becoming slim, I will be beautiful and will not be condemned to listen to people's nasty comments about being fat. It is extremely not pleasant and terribly saddening when I hear people joke/comment about my fats. It seems that because I am fat, therefore gave them the right to call me a pork chop. It seems that I am clumsy cause I am fat. By becoming slim, they will no longer be able to hurl insults at me and I will be happy. I will be more confident and confidence accounts to a lot as it affects the way you work and behave. By becoming slim, I'll be able to wear the clothes I always want to and look beautiful. By being beautiful, I think I will be happier. Why beautiful equals to happiness, you ask? I am being bias but I think beautiful girls are treated better by society. You get extra pay and you can get away with things that fat/ugly girls can't. When a girl is beautiful, usually there is a sureness in her. She knows what she wants and she will get it.

As I think skinniness is my temple of happiness, I have done all sorts of things to achieve it. Through out the past 10 years, I have exercised crazily, starved myself, researched on ways to speed it up and induced diarrhea on myself. Funny things that I have tried in the name of weight loss:-

1. Stop taking any form of sugar for 6 months; i.e. no chocolate, no sweets, no sugary drinks.
   
2. Drunk herbal dieting tea that caused me to go to the loo countless of times in a day.
3. Brush my teeth each time I have a craving for food.
4. Drink cold water when I'm cold and hot water when I'm hot. It seems that it will force your body to burn more calories as the body struggles to remain in its normal temperature.
5. I made sure that I would only go to sleep 4 hours after eating. For example, if I ate at 10pm, I would only go to bed at 2am.
   
6. I used to drink at least 3 litres of water each day cause I read somewhere that it helps to lose weight.
   
7. I used to exercise a lot. 100 sit-ups a day, 500 times skipping, 1 hour on the treadmill, Swim for 2 hours twice a week.
8. When I am starving and crave for a food item, I would read food reviews in the newspaper and imagine myself eating it.
   
9. I used to suck in my tummy all the time. I read somewhere that this action makes the body to burn more calories and your tummy flatter.
10. I bought countless of creams and lotions to firm/slim certain parts of my body. Each day, I would diligently apply and massage it into my skin.
    
11. I went and consult a doctor/dietician to lose 5kgs. She kicked me out of the clinic as she said I was at my normal/healthy weight/size.
    
12. I tried eating slower, munching on every morsel of food till it became some sort of goo.
    
13. Count calories more than I count my cash.
14. I tried to eliminate 80% of my carbohydrates intake. My diet became mainly fish, tau foo, peas, eggs and fruits except for bananas.
    
15. There was a time where I only take one apple at 7am in the morning, 500ml water at 10am, a tiny fish & some tau foo at 1pm and yogurt & 2 eggs at 6pm. I will be starving by 10pm but I will refuse to eat till the next morning, starving and going to sleep in a state of insanity.
    
16. I tried to change my love of food to hatred by telling myself daily that "Hunger is good. Food is evil".
    
17. If I feel tired on the treadmill, I will tell myself that "If others can do it, why can't I? I am not big boned and I will become slim. I would show them!"
    
18. I tormented my best friends daily by asking them whether my face grew fatter overnight. I'm so sorry, Desiree, Carminie and Anand. I know I was such a nuisance. It became so annoying to them that they would tell me that my face did become fatter overnight.
19. I kept 2 stainless steel spoon in the freezer every night. Every morning, the moment I wake up, I will massage my cheeks in a circular motion using the icy cold spoons. It helped me in reducing my fatty cheeks.
    
20. I tried the Cabbage soup diet before. The rules are that you can consume nothing but Cabbage soup through out the whole day. You can consume countless of times. However, I improvised. I was still counting calories. So I limit myself to a bowl 3 times a day.
    

I think that is more than enough information here. At the end of the 6th month, I ended my madness. I lost 17kgs in that 6 months and I accomplish my biggest mission which was to make people take notice of me. Everyone came asking how did I do it. I remember how it felt to show them what I've got. It was really satisfying, since I managed to prove myself to the shallow people in my high school.

Second way that I thought would make me happy is to have a loving, caring boyfriend. So I gave my all and tried my best to please a "Boyfriend" as I thought that would have made him love me. I swallowed my anger to avoid confrontations, I kept my silence when I felt hurt, I changed the way I dressed, I tried to not mix around with other guys so much and tried to have more girl friends, I stayed at home after 12, I stopped eating the food that he dislike, I hided the fact that I cried at night, I stopped asking for his help & became more independent as he dislike dependent girls, I took a cab home at midnight alone from KL even though I was supposed to have a boyfriend that was supposed to be there for me, I asked his opinions on everything before deciding, basically I was just a puppet. But no more, I say. I realized now that by doing all sorts of that kind of shit doesn't make me more lovable. It is true that you'll be happier if you have a boyfriend, but one that cares, that respect you, shares his burden and yours, cherish you, loves you and tries his best to calm your fears. What's the point if you are standing on your tiptoes at the edge of the cliff by yourself? It is for better or worse, girl. Never have a boyfriend that's only there for you at times of laughter but never at times of tears and fears.

Third way of being happier is to have friends. Friends that you can rely on. Friends that are there during ups and downs. A friend in need is a friend indeed. I did not change my mind about this way. I think as human, you need friends to be happy. As human, you need human interaction which does not apply only to work purposes and fulfilling basic needs but to socialize. It is fun to have friends to hang out with, to chit chat and to gossip with. It is fun to have a group of people who shares the same interest as you. As you all know, fun equals to happy.

Last but not the least, in my opinion, having money would make you happy. Why? Don't you ever get the tingling feeling in your tummy and heart whenever you get something that you want? How do you get something that you want? By purchasing it, of course. How do you purchase something? With money, of course! With money, there's a lot of things that you'll be able to do. You'll be able to do the things you like. For example, maybe join a dance class, have dinner out more often, go sky diving, travelling, shopping, read more books as you'll be able to purchase more, heck, you'll even be able to hang out with your friends more, cause you have the money to go out more often. How do you find money or rather, make money? You work, of course. I started working when I was 16. I'll list down the jobs that I've done.

1. My first job was to pour beer in wedding dinners for RM20 per job. Each time, it will lasts from 2 hours to 4 hours. Each time I will end up with frozen hands as I will be holding icy cold beer bottles. I will need to dip my hands in the ice tub, taking new bottles of beer. The maximum I can hold at one go would be 3 bottles in one hand or 6 bottles in total.
   
2. My second job would be as a bubble milk tea girl. I took care of a small shop in Giant, Seremban, working around 12 hours each day standing up. I had to manage the finance, keep track of the stocks, mop and clean up the store. My boss only paid me RM3 per hour. How's that for cheap labor?
3. My third job was as a telemarketer, trying to con some rich couple to come to my office and listen to a talk. They gave me Telecoms' phone book and I was supposed to randomly call numbers from the book. I had a standard script and a list of what to ask. However, the script was pretty bad as it does not convince people to part with their personal information. So I improvised. I was becoming such a good information digging con girl. However, the pay sucks too. They were supposed to pay me RM4 per hour. But there's a catch, I have to make 10 valid calls per hour. Valid calls meaning I could get through to the person and get the information. Sometimes I couldn't get them so they paid me less than the hours I worked for.
   
4. I am lazy to list down all my jobs one by one. But so far, I've work as a receptionist, data entry girl, Starbucks barista, Carlbergs ambassador (hey, I just teach them the proper way of enjoying beer in the supermarket only! My uniform was a long sleeve white collared shirt and long black pants.), Kit Kats promoter, Johnson & Johnson promoter, Head & Shoulders promoter, KL Tower promoter, erm, I don't remember anymore. Basically, there's a lot more. My list of permanent job is shorter. I've only worked as an events organizer, a software engineer and now, a regional business development consultant.

Earning money yourself gives you the right to spend it on things that you want. That is what I believe in. Don't ever expect people to buy you things cause you'll be in debt to them. That is another headache. Besides, we have to learn to be financially independent, don't we? By having money, you'll be able to purchase the things you long for. In my case, it'll be car and a house of my own. I hope I'll reach my dream soon. Happiness!

Here I shall end my super duper long story of my pursuit of happiness. I would not want to bore you some more. In the search of happiness, I have done many silly things that I thought would make me happy. Only through pain and remorse that I found out that it was not entirely true. However a person can only grow up by learning from their mistakes. And in the Quest for Happiness, you'll bound to fall and learn to stand up again. By going through that, only one day that you'll know what truly makes you happy. I believe everyone has their own pursuit of happiness. Mind to tell me yours?