The Formula for Happiness

The Formula for happiness (H)!

H = P + 5E + 3H

P = personal characteristics (outlook, adaptability)
E = existence (health, money, friends, family)
H = higher order (religion, self-esteem, ambitions, sense of humor)

Personal characteristic is a stand alone parameter. It is hard to be happy if you are a person with depressive, obsessive or anxious personality. Certain features in you will make you worried. You ought to be a happy-go-lucky and extroverted person and that is, in fact, your real attribute. The rests are perhaps, a combination of acquired environmental attributes plus value system that you hold which made up the higher order attribution.

Being happy does not mean that you are less serious or less earnest with life. You can still be a productive worker in your workplace. It is the way you cope with stress in life.

In my case, I am using pantun as another attribute to existence (E). If you are not convince, let me elevate some skeptical remarks on pantun.

Pantun is a traditional Malay poetry, composed in a rhyme of word in which the first few lines (usually the first two lines) are made up of the lead followed by the last few line, contained the massage.

Pantun help you to convey sarcastic messages in a civilized and acceptable manner. It encourages you to think before you say a word. It trains your mind to cerebrate, cogitate, reason, reflect, speculate and eventually make you a thoughtful person. Hence, pantun is made to be highly allusive and you need to train yourself to understand the traditional meaning of the symbol it’s employ.

As a Malay, I’m proud of my traditional heritage. No way that English language can fully simulate pantun in its original form with regard to the artistic and poietic qualities. In short, it is the flavor to happiness.