The Many Colours of Happiness

Have a mentioned that I want to live in France?  My dream has been Germany up until now. I fell in love with the country and the wonderful people when I went there three years ago. The cobblestone streets, the bikes and cafes, their love of Christmas that borders on obsession.  Ahh, it's everything I ever wanted. Perfection.  But..there is something very appealing about France to me right now. It's not the fact that most of favourite authors come from there. Nor that I'm in love with wine, bread and cheese (though I am). Neither is it the beautiful language, the fascinating history or the amazing architecture.  It's that they don't take anything lying down.  Politicians don't just blindly run the country, ignoring what is good for the people. Ignoring what the people want. If the government makes a decision that people don't like, you hear about it.  Boy do you hear about it.  While I'm not saying I support riots (as I have never been in one so I have no...

I have not been able to blog all week, mainly because I have had a major assignment due and procrastinating by writing a blog rather than simply sitting...well it just felt too productive so I didn't do it. I have been thinking a lot about failure lately. About how there is so much pressure to do well. All the time. Not just at school, or work, but life in general. We all go around only doing the things that we are good at; or avoiding things just because we are scared we may not get it quite right. Scared of being a 'failure'. When really you need to fail to progress in life. To become the person you want to be. To experience life as it should be experienced, not simply through the little protective bubbles we put around ourselves.  For a long time (as long as I can remember) I wanted to be perfect. At everything. In every way. Failure terrified me. But I did fail. All the time.  I was so far from the perfection I craved that by the time I reached college my self-esteem wa...

I have been reading Les Miserables over the last few weeks, and it honestly has changed my entire outlook on life. Don't you just love books like that? So rare, but when you find them they are worth a million hours spent reading. There are a group of students in the book who are dreamers. They are revolutionaries. They want to change the world. They sit around and have discussions around human rights, politics and the universe. They spend hours sitting in the streets of Paris observing the people. Observing the world. They meditate under trees and think about important issues. They think about life. And it made me realise how shallow and unimportant so much of the world is. So much of my life. So many hours are wasted discussing clothes and television, rather than ethics and altruism. I know a lot of people think this all sounds stupid. That sitting around dreaming is a waste of time. But what were we given brains for if not to think with? Why were we born in this amazing world if ...

I cried the other day. For no reason at all. I couldn't stop. It was like all of my worries, frustrations and heartbreaks came out at once. And it hurt. Really hurt. But the next day I woke up feeling like a whole new person. Well, not a whole new person. But the beginnings of one. It was if the tears of the day before really had washed everything away. And when I stepped outside the sun seemed that little bit brighter, my step a little bit lighter, and I fell in love with life all over again.