Reflections on the eve of my birthday

Hamlet’s question haunts me since I was nearly 16 and faced life’s difficulties for the first time. Not too much changed. But of course, efforts to be optimistic have been made all these years, attempts to become a better human being, to accomplish some great things and achieve a state of inner contentment. Too much agitation, energy spent on working, learning, fighting, hoping, every day. New ideas rushing into my head and not letting me sleep.

And all for nothing. In vain I have struggled. Old thoughts keep coming back to me. I am the same fragile teenage trying to escape reality, but all the doors are locked. I am condemned to watch myself grow into a dangerous state of frustration and alienation from my life.

We are thrown into this world, whether we want it or not, and forced to survive. Some of us are doing it better than the others. Some of us like the idea of constant fight and aspire to get on top of the wave to display their power to survive so well… while others are merely wondering what they are doing here and hide themselves behind the painful mask of illusion.

Non-sense? Not at all. These are the thoughts of a grown-up who has lived more than a quarter of a century, and has already experienced a lot: happiness in childhood, disappointment and anger in adolescence, love, hatred, passion and hope in youth and is now trying to draw some general conclusions. 

I am not the right person to confirm the existence of happiness. The concept is different for every one of us. But as long as we don’t have inner peace, self-contentment and self-confidence, happiness is almost impossible. Such an emotional equilibrium can hardly be acquired.

“To be or not to be?..
Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them?”