Do people really know where their happiness comes from? It’s strange because right now part of my contentment is derived from something that makes me sad: not having my friends and family around. As previously mentioned I have, in the past, suffered from a small measure of guilt resulting from not spending enough time with the people I care about. But here in Berlin I’m less susceptible to this because of the physical distance. I also have some friends here that I get to hang out with and this dulls the pain of being away from home. I imagine if I was alone in a city with no one around, it would be different.
To go back to my original question, I had to think a lot about this to fully understand the conflicting emotions I am experiencing. Here in Berlin I have time to reflect and understand why something that should make me sad is making me happy. I imagine that others suffer from similar issues, say, missing your kids when they’re at camp / but happy you have the weekend free. It’s a simple example but I bet that most people experience these types of situations.
In fact I think the problems of most people are probably much more complex. And when things are more complex it takes more time to understand the situation and it takes more energy. And I think this is a big problem. People these days have no time (and by extension, capacity) to actually detach from their lives to do a systems check.
“Honey, you mind looking after the kids for the next 9 days? I need to sort some things out.”
You can sleep on my couch when you get back.
But there is also another component – the actual ability to do a systems check. Some people have a natural ability to do this but it is rare. I know a few and let me tell you if one in ten people were like them, they would be no war. Most people either need to have someone else do the check, or receive training on how to perform one themselves. In each of these three cases, it’s important to have an independent third party to validate the proposal / results.
Man, there’s a lot here and I could go on. But I think this is enough for right now. More on this later.
Die Hard Three 
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