Life is about happiness. It should be as simple as that but it isn’t, it’s about ultimate, secure happiness, not temporary satisfaction or pleasure. In other words, I suppose you could say “santosa”. It’s about the happiness of oneself, the happiness of the ones you love and care for, it’s about love, and about understanding and learning too.

Understanding and learning break ignorance, yet very often ‘ignorance is bliss’ so this can be a troubling concept at times. Why do we need to understand more if it only leads to more questions, more confusion, and unsettling emotions? I don’t claim to know all the answers, but just because I don’t - or science doesn’t - doesn’t mean there isn’t a natural explanation. I’m not prepared to write it all off to some supernatural force just yet.

I do think at times that things ‘happen for a reason’. Yet whether this is a deep-set belief or not, I’m not so sure. And as for where morality comes from, I’m not sure at all. As I said, I don’t have the answers…It drives me crazy just thinking about all the possibilities. And worst of all is the frustration of not knowing, but I refuse to believe something based on someone else’s testimony or conviction.

I do believe that we can be happy without thinking we have a divine purpose, divine intervention in our lives, or the possibility of more lives after this one..but I haven’t been home a few hours and I’m being tested already: My hook-up just “broke up” with me; he’s confused, he doesn’t want to hurt me again. Excuses, excuses, I know it’s because my unwavering happiness is being tested.

I’ve known for a while now that I have to learn to be alone: not boyfriend-less, but completely alone, no hook-ups at all. But I wasn’t going to break them off…seems it’s happening for itself. If there are such things as signs…well I suppose this would qualify. He was the last one left.

I know already that I’ve grown in the last few months, or at least returned back to my old self: this time I didn’t cry, though I felt like crying certainly. It was an emotional day as it were, without this additional stress. However, I bore in mind that we control our emotions, and am not allowing myself to feel any emptiness at all. My happiness does not depend on him or any other person or thing external to me. My happiness does not depend on relying on some supernatural being to be there for me and look out for me, it depends on myself, knowing myself and trusting myself.

I don’t desire stagnant happiness, but other than happiness I cannot think of a deeper meaning to life. It’s something I’ve pondered for a while, and I know I’m only young - as anyone will be quick to point out – so maybe I shall find a deeper meaning one day, when I have children, or get married, or something equally dramatic and life-changing happens. But for now I am happy as I am and content with what I do know. That which I do not know I am open to finding out, if it is possible. I’m not closing my mind to other possibilities, although constancy is settling and change unnerving. But I am not scared, I’m not closed-minded, I don’t have a mental-block. I just know what I do and don’t believe in, and it was not a rash decision, for years I toyed with the idea of being a plaything of the gods. I just happen to think I have reached the end of the road on that particular issue, that I have drawn my conclusions, logically and rationally. I am not one for blind faith.

Three hours later and it seems I have had another sign, a friend of mine just left my house, depressed and forlorn, although less so than he was when he arrived. Why do we let break-ups affect us so much? I told him what I was telling myself – we feel what we want to. And more than ever I see that happiness is the aim of life.