Last year, I wrote a series of posts on The Happiness Project — one post for each month! Since then, I had not found another good story about happiness until I ran across this story about finding happiness with balloons.
The Happiness Balloons
A wise teacher once brought balloons to the school and told her pupils to blow them up. She asked them to write their name on one of the
balloons. After the children were done writing the names, they tossed their balloons into the hall and the teacher mixed all of the balloons up so that none of the children could trace theirs easily. Five minutes were given to the kids to find the balloon with their name on it. However, even after a frantic search, none of the kids could find their own balloon.
The teacher then asked the children to pick the balloon that was lying nearest to them and give it to the person whose name was written on it. In less than two minutes, everyone was standing holding their own balloon.
The teacher then said to the children, “These balloons are like the balloons of happiness. We won’t find our happiness if we’re only searching for our own. However, if we care about other’s happiness…it will ultimately help us find our own.”
The crux of the story is that when we choose to look for our own happiness, we will never happen to find it. However, when we care about other’s happiness and take their emotions into account — it will eventually help us find our own happy place.
Following is the story in video form:
“Heaven and Hell seem the same,” she told me. In Hell, people sit at long banquet tables trying to eat with very long-handled utensils and forks. Because the handles were so long, no one could feed themselves, and many were starving.
But in Heaven, there was the same table, the same long forks. But instead of trying to feed themselves, people are using the long-handled spoons and forks to feed each other!
Even after all this time, I find her story to be very enlightening!