The sight of warm bright sunbeams tickled my iris and imagination. At least I could sense her warmth in the cool, air-conditioned room. What a glorious day it was, with bright sunshine, fleet-footed children and snoozing cats. The thought of going outside tripped through my head like an impatient ballerina. But I had no time to let the sun shine on my skin, no time to go out into nature or eat ice cream, to make a mess and laugh away the stains, no time to enjoy this wonderful day. Too many appointments, too many plans, too many commitments. Always forward, although everything is turning. I sat at my desk in an exemplary manner and was already looking forward to the evening. Going out onto the balcony and looking up at the cloudless sky.
A clear starry sky
But most of all I was looking forward to the stars and thinking about the fact that I hadn't seen a single shooting star this year. I couldn't get this picture of a clear starry sky out of my head and it became my personal fixed star. I was so sure that I would finally see her again. The day was long and exhausting, ending in a delirium of paperwork and timelessness. And when I finally got home and was about to open the window, I heard a strange, rhythmic noise. A symphony drummed to the beat. So that's how it was. I expected the stars but only heard the rain...
The American engineer Mo Gadwat developed a simple formula for happiness: Happiness is at least equal to or greater than what happens in our lives, minus our expectations of how we imagine it. Unfulfilled expectations prevent us from being happy. This is nothing new; it's so simple, and precisely for that reason, so difficult. To accept that it rains even though you want to see the stars, to accept that people leave even though you want to keep them, to realize that silence prevails even though there is so much to say. And so it is with what is said.
Some words are like rain. You don't expect them, and yet they fall like raindrops, despite a fair weather forecast.
One can choose to constantly resist the things that unexpectedly befall one, to blame them for every disappointment if one only wants to see what one wants to see. However, I choose a different path. A path that doesn't look as I ever imagined it, but which nevertheless remains a path, a direction toward happiness. I accept, because what I cannot see now, I can hear. I hear the stars, and they sound wonderful. What they couldn't twinkle for me, they send me with every single raindrop.
