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The Quest for the Elixir of Happiness


The Cricket World Cup has come and gone. People got really bleak about the Proteas losing and now it is all forgotten. Sport takes you from ecstatic ecstasy to tearful tears of tearfulness. One minute a team can look like they're going to beat New Zealand convincingly, and the next they lose. Such is the nature of sport.

I think to some extent sport mimics life in that both have these highs and lows. You get the courage to ask a girl out, she says yes, and later you find out that you have nothing in common. Or you get the job you really wanted only to find out it’s just an internship and you only get paid in beer. Or you think that you’re going to win an award for a short you directed and then you don’t and then you get bleaked out because you thought that this time you were going to win. You thought that this relationship, this prize, this job was going to take your life from average to awesome, but it hardly ever does.

I'm not saying that everything fails and life is pointless because people do get dream jobs where they’re paid, and they do marry awesome wives, and they do win best director. What I am saying is that these high points are often only short lived. We think these mini-challenges are major climaxes that will solve our problems, and we focus our lives and thoughts on achieving them. And while you might have the best job or best wife it still isn't plain sailing. There is no everlasting happy ending. Unfortunately life is work and it has its ups and downs.

My point is that we should enjoy these mini-challenges for what they are, simply steps towards a better story, not as the elixir of happiness.

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