Author: Andrea Grassi

I got stuck in an elevator today, no big deal, but there was a phrase that amazed me.
When I called the support from within the elevator phone the first thing the woman on the other side of the line said was

“Aside from the fact that you’re blocked, are you all ok and feel fine?”

Seems quite obvious to ask right now, but if you look at it this is probably the result of many improvements over how the people communicate in these emergency cases.

In the beginning maybe there were people who wouldn’t care, but I guess after many protests or blames we got to this, to this empathy of communication.

What would happen if we all communicated with such empathy?
How would the world change if the first words we say to each other in an emergency situation were
“Aside from this emergency, are you all right and feel fine?”

I should always keep in mind that doing writing too late removes all the joy. Dunno why, it’s probably an energy thing.

What I think is that I don’t spend my energy correctly during the day, therefore at the end of the day I have less willpower and energy than I thought it was possible, leading to frustration in writing and “hell, I wish it was faster”.

But writing is rarely so fast, it takes concentration, time. It requires you to be creative, passionate, to do things that work out.

That’s why I prefer doing it in the morning.

The goal of learning is to prove you’re not capable of doing something and improve it until you learn something new.

• do less
• sleep more
• observe more
• talk less
• listen more

I always thought happiness was a goal.
Some kind of enlightenment that you’d reach once you settled everything with everyone.
Some prize I’d eventually get in life if I did all good.

But it’s not that way.
Today I was 87% happy.

Sounds crappy, but it’s actually a pretty reasonable number.
If you think about it, on a scale from 1 to 10, it’s almost a 9, but if you think about “I’m not entirely happy” somethings seems missing.
You are happy or you are not happy, right? Happiness, at least to me, was something you would reach or not. There was no middle way to do it.

Either you’re happy, or you’re not.
Being “almost happy”, seems like you’re not happy, but in fact it might only say that you’re working on it and at least in my case that would be true.

Happiness is not a goal, it’s a state of mind, something that you are in control to do.
Today I was almost happy, given the fact that it was a stressful day.
That’s the part that counts.
“given the fact that it was a stressful day”.

I looked at the sky, had my mind almost clear, I enjoyed many of the seconds of this beautiful day.
It was great.

I think anyone could be happy, that happiness is within anyone’s reach.
To get there you have to learn and accept.
It’s not easy as saying “Happiness is a choice”.
Yes, it’s true, but choosing happiness is part of a bigger work and doesn’t happen overnight (if it does it’s fake and it won’t last).

You have to do the hard work, improve yourself, learn that you have bad sides that you must work on, and work on it.
There is no shortcut.