Recently, I returned or deleted several books in my audio library that were bought impulsively or by mistake. When I started listening to them, I soon realized I didn’t want to continue. That being said when I started to listen to Happiness Falls, I thought that this book would end up in the same virtual dumpster. To my surprise, I realized that I wanted to keep reading! Moreover, I used each and every single free minute to keep listening until I finished the book.
I was especially surprised that I ended up liking it so much because one of the main themes of the book resonates with the central theme of Everything is f*cted, the book which I didn’t like at all. The idea is that happiness is relative, and the higher the “base level,” the more difficult it is to reach a high level of happiness. Sure, the objective measuring of happiness is a separate issue, but at least subjectively, many (if not most) people agree.
I do not like this idea because, for many years, inspired by my mom’s attitude, I was always super anxious for this very reason. When I wanted something to happen, or I was anticipating something good coming/happening soon, I tried to lower my expectations so that I wouldn’t be disappointed. This way of thinking evolved quickly into experiencing severe anxiety before these potentially good events. I imagined all sorts of things that would prevent good things from happening. Likewise, I was never fully immersed in being happy, always thinking that “there will be consequences.”
It took years after I moved to the US (which meant being away from my mom and also observing a very different attitude to life) until I started to realize that I was harming both myself and my loved ones and that I started to learn to think and live differently. It took a while, but I made this change, possibly because, by nature, I am a happy person, and I was a happy child until I was taught to be unhappy.
The most important thing I loved about this book is another theme: reflections about how a non-verbal person is judged in our society as mentally incapable. The author draws a parallel between being a foreigner who does not know the language of their new country and a person with motor skills deficiencies that prevent them from using spoken language.
Language (and accent)-wise, I’ve written about it so often that I do not want to repeat it. I had it both ways: being a subject of “those who speak with an accent think with an accent” and subconsciously having the same attitude toward others. I am deeply ashamed of the latter, but I can’t deny that I had that attitude at some point in my life.
Also, I couldn’t stop thinking about one Russian family whom I have known for many years, where the mother discovered a similar way to communicate with her son with severe cerebral palsy. I remember both her struggles and disbelief and denial from the doctors and general public, all the accusations of “faking” her son’s communications with others. I could not stop thinking about them all the time I was listening to this book.
Hettie's Reflections 