The World as I see it.

I am a good judge of character – that much I know. I am no mother Teresa, Mohandas Gandhi or Dalai Lama myself, but that will not stop me judging other people. I have met so many people and - life willing - I will meet even more. Of the lot I have met so far, the happy people are generally good and the bad – miserable.

Now how do I define happy? By happy, I mean people who are not sad. I mean people who are just happy and positive – no strings attached.  I mean those people, who no matter what they might be going through in private – like the rest of us - they don’t moan about it. And how do I define sad? By sad I mean those people who on the other hand moan about everything.  They are selfish, negative and it takes the world to put a smile on their faces. They are not usually happy with their lot in life and bear grudges against those they consider to be unfairly better off.  As I said, sad.

I find that happy people are in general – good. They see the positive side to everything. They smile more, they laugh more, they say the nicest things, “considering”. They help you when they can without expecting much in return. They forgive and forget more. They attract more people towards themselves because we humans are attracted to this positive quality. I just cannot help myself, but I just love such people. In fact I worship them. On the flip side, they expose themselves to up-to-no-goods to take advantage of their good nature. In a funny way, being taken advantage of is an indication of one’s good nature. Some might think of it as being naïve or stupid, but, I still believe there is an element of pessimisms, negativity even wickedness in always being too cautious. One has to – sometimes - expose one self to the elements before one can conclude with good evidence if one is a genuine favour-seeker or a sad parasite. I have exposed myself to a fair share of “elements” and with very interesting experiences to tell. Recently, I was approached at London Victoria station by a man who claimed to be have lost his wallet and needed £15.00 to get to Gatwick.  I gave it to him without much thought. Luckily for this man, there was no way I could verify the authenticity of his story and I had £15.00 to spare.  I told two friends about it knowing fully well what they would have done had they been in my shoes. One thought it was naïve of me to give away £15.00 just like that, while the other thought I will be rewarded in heaven. To be honest, after writing this, I hope to forget the incident forever. Be this man genuine or not, be me naive or not, it is so insignificant – as insignificant as they come. I have bigger problems to worry about than the authenticity of every Tom Dick and Harry I encounter. And I am happy to carry one like this.

However, there are people who – although they might seem very happy and positive on the outside – are not good. For this bunch of people, their happiness has a smack of pride, affluence, arrogance and comeuppance. Pride, arrogance, exuberance and affluence are not necessarily bad qualities. In fact, I don’t mind being seen to exhibit these qualities but coated with approachability, sincerity, fairness and humility. The sad people I refer to get their happiness from pride and this pride is rooted in the fact that they have something that puts them – in some way - above the Toms, Dicks and Harrys of this world. In effect they see themselves as better than and/or superior to the average Joes. Don’t get me wrong, I am a realist. I am not one of those who preach and expect equality in returns in all human endeavours. I am aware of the basic fact that some always put in more than others. For those that put in more effort, may they be blessed with huge rewards. I for one strive for and always will strive for huge rewards. He who has worked hard and elevated himself to higher economic and social circles cannot be faulted. The people I have problems with are those you see everyday having “made it” in whatever their field develop this attitude of superiority and arrogance. Majority of the people I have met who fall into this category always exaggerate their importance. Always inflate their egos at every opportunity. I always wonder to myself, why - if their stories are true – are they not happier human beings? Why feel the need to say something bad about someone else especially someone less successful?  I wonder how these “little” people bother them so much. I was once talking to a security guard friend of mine and another friend commented on the calibre of friends I keep. How sad for one to chose friends just by job title.  The fact that such a thought even occurred to someone is scary and these are the type of people I am talking about here.  I remember talking a certain friend about an acquaintance who now runs his own business. I will not say that this acquaintance was a friend but I was still very proud of him. This female, being one of the sad types, told me about her friends running their own businesses and earning millions. She even went on to tell me about her own business. Until then I was interested until a realised she had what at best I will call a website of no consequence. Full of big words and big projects with no single live project in the bag. It was just sitting there in cyber-space gathering cyber dust!! Why would she – considering her situation - even feel like putting my acquaintance down? That is the thing I don’t get. I can tell the types by their moves especially when you meet for the first time. They always seem defensive. What gives it away for me is the very firm hand shake, the distance, the fake smile, the body language. I just think they take this professional code of conduct a bit too far. I don’t mind females being wary of me at first, at least they have reason to, but when it’s a man, I feel it says something about the man. I remember again a girl I used to work with. Very ambitious and driven and always looking inch-perfect morning, day and night. She had the looks but was single – for some reason.  I always joked with her saying the man that ends up as her husband will be the luckiest. Then one day, I realised she never talked to our security staff at the time. These security guys were always nice to everybody. I didn’t think anyone would find anything unpleasant about them so I asked this girl why she never spoke to them. She then shocked me by saying she didn’t want to encourage them, “Besides” she said, “I can’t be talking to them”. It is funny, but this is a true story. I am sure everyone reading this is either like this woman and knows a person like her. Also, I think I am just too sensitive in the sense that such incidents always fire me up. People are really messed up. I have been told before that worrying about issues like these will leave me burnt out before my time – I agree.

Anyway, believe it or not, we all are either one or the other to a varying degree. It will not be fair for me to define myself here because I am both judge and jury but I know I am not as bad as some of the people I have described. My point is if people feel they are good, then they should not worry about others. They should not assume the worst in others or always say the worst things about others. I feel deep inside they harbour insecurity and evil that is simply and plainly scary. There is only one exception in my books to wishing another person ill – it is love. It will be very stupid to expect a jilted person to wish the best to a love interest.  It should be discouraged at all costs but it is almost above man to be positive in such situations. It’s like expecting the bereaved not to cry or like expecting the wounded not to feel pain. I have heard funny stories about crimes of passion and the likes. Every single one of them I can understand and will excuse them here after all some have said – and I agree – loving and hating are the same thing. In love you do the best things and in hate you do the worst. Another topic all together but some get my drift.

To me, a true sign of good in people is happiness and the best wishes to all men. How hard is that?