Buying Happiness

- this piece is dedicated to kye who is always happy.......

What is happiness? It is all about showing the feeling of pleasure or contentment, according to the oxford thinker who came out with the book they call dictionary. Do you buy happiness? How much? What’s the price? Some said it’s free but others would spend some amount of money to be happy.

We go to work every day for one thing in common, money. Why do we need money then? To buy food, pay bills, shelters, educations and thousands other reasons. Do you feel happy having bigger house? Do you feel the pleasure of getting new car? Are you guys happy with the widest plasma screen tv, the most expensive piece of watch, the nicest garden with pools and gazebo, the expensive dinner at one of the restaurant that you pay RM17.90 for a glass of coke, do you?

Wiseman once said, money can’t buy happiness but the same wise man would charge you RM200 for a session of ‘Seminar Wang Bukan Segalanya - kebahagiaan menurut agama’. Ask Datuk Dr FK how much he makes every time he preaches about our happiness.

The world is so fucked up that happiness is gauge by ringgit and sen. Media will set the standards and working class people will do all they can to be part of the higher society. One can climb the hierarchy but never can he reach the peak, coz there is no climax to happiness, you’re just walking on the surface ofthe globe.

Today I’m not happy with the RM5.80 coffee at this kopitiam and for once money can’t buy me happiness or could it be that the amount of money I have is not enough for me to be happy.

The Prince and the 'prince'

Machiavelli once wrote about the prince. In a nutshell, a prince must either be feared or loved to stay in power, neither of those, the Prince is just another proletariat in a state, similar to you and me.

Five years ago we were granted with a new king, and how happy were we to have the new king replacing the old throne that ruled for more than 20 years, which according to several, the former was cruelled and feared by the populace.

We failed to notice from the beginning that the new king brought with him a ‘prince’ who his favorite’s book is ‘the Prince’ by Machiavelli. K with the big J was not a real prince but a ‘prince’ by marriage but acted strangely like he was the real prince who soon will be the King.

For five years the ‘prince’ lived in the forbidden city of ‘Kingdom of Heaven’, never loved but at all times feared by the populace. With fear came hatred and with hatred came the courage, the courage to overthrow the king, the only way to eliminate the arrogant ‘prince’.

March 2008, the populace march to the Forbidden City and sent a message to the King, ‘we hate you mainly because of your son in law, behold, the wave is coming and the scene is going to be ugly’.

A year later the King Lah succumbs to the pressure and handed the power to a former prince who was the son of a king that once ruled the Kingdom of Heaven as cereal as the King Lah himself.

Yesterday, the new King announced the new occupant of the Forbidden City, one of them was the former prince, Prince M&M, the son of the famous King MM. As for the ‘prince’, he’ll only be shouting from outside the Forbidden City.

Amazingly, I have a thing in common with Prince M&M; we came from the same schooling system, the MRSM courtesy of the late King Razak, father of the present King. The system taught us so much about principalities and perhaps we opt for different path.

These are few quotes for different people,

To the new Prince M&M,

"...a wise prince should establish himself on that which is his own control and not in that of others; he must endeavor to avoid hatred, as is noted." – Machiavelli

To the ‘prince’

“…If people don’t like you, don’t force” – Pak Usop (my dad)

To Shahrul Azmi
“… For whatever it is, get your work done” – My Boss