Don't Pursue Happiness, Create it

It must be a conspiracy….or destiny. Whatever you call it, something, somewhere is pushing me to pursue my dreams. Last night after a long, long, long week in the office, I decided that I was finally going to watch the movie UP. I had had it from Netflix for at least 2 months now. It had traveled with me to Taipei…and back…..Texas…...and back…….and New York….. and back….A couple of weeks ago I told one of my friends that I still hadn’t watched it and she told me to watch it alone at home as I would probably cry my eyes out. A good thing I never got around watching it on one of my plane rides as crying your eyes out next to fellow passengers is probably not such a great idea.

So with nothing planned on Friday night I decided it was time to watch this movie. I poured myself a glass of wine and started watching. My friend had been right. I started crying after about 15 minutes when Ellie dies without having pursued her dream of building a house on top of Paradise Falls. Carl finds the book Ellie shared with him years ago, when they first met as kids. They both had a dream of becoming explorers. He looks at her book again after all these years and comes to Ellie's page that says “stuff I am going to do" and I tell myself: you see, keep pursuing your dreams, do the things you always wanted to do before it is too late.

To pursue Ellie's dream, the old man decides to go on an adventure and ties enough balloons to his house so it can fly and off he goes to find Paradise Falls for his Ellie.













It is a long and challenging trip, but with the help of a young boyscout called Russell and a dog called Dug, he finally finds Paradise Falls.












He puts the house exactly where Ellie had pictured it, but just as he has the house up and enjoys the views, he has to pack up the house again to fly to save his little boyscout friend and Kevin the bird. By saving them, the house gets destroyed and the old man is sad that he could not finish Ellies dream. Until he goes thru Ellie's book again and scrolls past the pages of her dream about Paradise Falls. The next pages in the book have captured a lot of memories of the great times they shared during their life together, including the many times they lie down, look at the sky and dream about how one day they would find Paradise Falls. At that moment he realizes that eventhough Ellie never made it to Paradise Falls, them talking about it, the dreams and memories about it in itself have given her a lot of happiness during her life and he finally he feels at peace.



What I learned from this is that you don't always have to achieve all your goals. Having dreams and thinking about them, planning them in itself is what create happiness. And in the end remember one thing: you are the only one that can create your happiness. Dont wait for it or for somebody else to make it happen for you.