Version 2.151

 "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." ~ Leo Tolstoy

The opening of Anna Karenina got into my head for some odd reason and I have been thinking about it very much recently, even though I have never read the book. To be honest, the size of the book is very intimidating and the way I handle failure is that I only try things at which I do not know whether I will fail, thus I actively avoid things that I know will lead to failure. Life is too short, as are Chekhov's short stories.

Happiness has never been something that I valued and it is certainly something that I try not to think about, preferably ever. My mother often asked herself out loud why was it that she couldn't be happy and seeing someone so unhappy, while trying to be so damned happy just completely did it for me. However, I often find myself considering my own personal relationship with happiness, if not for the silly reason that my friends often tell me that I deserve to be happy and they seem to know exactly what it is that would make me happy, which is often the one thing that they believe makes them happy. 

"Deserve to be happy" is one of my pet peeves. Why would anyone be that entitled when there is so much pain and misery all over the world? Still, I cannot deny that I am actually quite happy. I don't know if that makes me just like all the other happy folks out there, in the guise of the Anna Karenina Principle, but it is true that for the most part I do not feel like I am lacking something or, better yet, I relish in the things that I do lack.