A Holocaust Survivor’s Secret of Happiness
I was sent a video by one of my friends, this one from the U.K. online news site, The Guardian. It got me thinking of how much control each one of us has over our own happiness, no matter what life throws us. For the most part, unless our depression is biological, we can choose to sink to the darkest depths of despair or rise above it and focus on the positives. Here is an interview with Alice Herz-Sommer, a former concert pianist and a 106 yr. old survivor of the holocaust. Hers is an unusual story. One glove doesn’t fit all, but there is something to learn from this indomitable human spirit.
The video got me thinking of my own grandmother, my Baba, the one whose memoir I’m writing. She was tested many times in her life. She lost a husband, children, survived wartime with all its horrors, overcame an epidemic illness, and rose above poverty. And yet, I did not see her as an unhappy person. She wasn’t wealthy and ended up living with my mom, dad and me in a two bedroom downstairs suite of a rooming house. All she had was her small government pension but I never heard her complain. All she wanted was for her family to be well and for them to get along. Her devotion to God, her church and her family kept her going. She laughed and sang and didn’t dwell on what went wrong. Sometimes, our greatest teachers on how to live are the ones who’ve survived the worst in life.
What do you think? Is your cup half empty or half full? Do you think we can make our own happiness?
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mrs Diana…
happiness comes from yourself, I think health is happiness, for that I always write about health and life expectancy for a green world, and i think ‘my life is farming’…
I have to agree. Good health is happiness. My mother used to say at the end of her life, I don’t have my health, what’s good of it? I’m ready to join Peter. That was her husband (and my father).