Have you ever been caught in a situation where you have to choose between the doing the right thing and not be happy or doing the wrong thing and to be insanely happy? You go through a lot of drama. Ask a lot of questions. You tell lies. You have sleepless nights or maybe lose the respect of the people around you because you have finally decided to be happy, even if the cause of that happiness is not right.

Happiness has always been a debatable subject. I read once that the simplest way for people to be happy is just to be happy. Life has always been that simple, according to theories. You do whatever life makes worth living. You do whatever it is that will bring you joy. I was once a believer of that. I grew up with phrases like “carpe diem”, “live for the moment, and fight the next day”. History also taught me to “drink and be merry for tomorrow we die”. In College, when we were procrastinating instead of doing thesis we always say, ”Di bale nang malungkot bukas basta masaya ngayon” (It doesn’t matter if we are sad tomorrow as long as we are happy today). I guess you can say I had a happy life. I was carefree. I was able to do the things I wanted. I did something that I never thought I’d do because at that time, it felt that it was the only source of happiness for me. I didn’t care what other people would think. The worst thing is, I didn’t even care about the words of the Lord. What I am trying to say is, I understand how it feels to be happy-go-lucky. I know what it’s like. But sooner or later, we all have to grow up.

Life is a battle between good and evil. The good ones stick with good [of course] the bad ones stick with evil [and the confused ones stick with maybe. ‘Maybe’ is just another one of those inventions of man to make life complex. Despite that, life has always been black or white. Life has a lot more to offer than being happy at that moment when we want to be. We can’t just choose to do the wrong thing since that will make us happy. Why? This is because no matter what, it is still wrong. It may make us feel good now but for how long? How many people are we hurting in the process? Sometimes we have to choose to do the right thing. After all, God rewards those who do what is good. We may not have that happiness now, but only time will tell. God is very generous and loyal to His children. Sometimes, we even get blessings even though we don’t deserve them. What more if we do?

Picture taken from: Flicker