Happiness is a choice, it is not a chance.

Because man follows the rhythm of the sea.

A human life is so wonderful, so unbelievable.

Year in year out,

day in day out, you move among people and things.

Some days the sun shines and you don’t know why.

You are at peace.

You see only the warm and good sides of life.

You laugh, you dance, you give thanks.

You work seems easy. You get on well with everyone.

You don’t know why. Perhaps you are sleeping well…

Maybe you’ve found a close friend

or you have a sense of security…

You would like this time of calm and deep joy

to last forever.

But suddenly everything changes.

It is almost as if too bright  a sun

has bought on the clouds.

 A kind of indefinable sadness comes over you.

Everything seems black,

You think that no one likes you anymore.

Any trifling thing seems to give you a reason to complain,

to grumble, to be jealous or to reproach.

You think things will go on and on like this,

That this mood will never lift.

And once again you don’t know why.

Perhaps you are tired.

You don’t understand it. Why must it be this way?

Because a human being is a piece of ‘nature’,

interwoven with days of Spring and days of Autumn,

With the warmth of the Summer and the cold of Winter.

Because man follows the rhythm of the sea-

ebb and flow.

Because our existence is a continuous repetition

of ‘living’ and ‘dying’.

If you grasp this, you can carry on,

with courage and trust.

for then you know in yourself that after every night

a new morning will come.

If you can accept this, you will be able to live through

the regular rhythm of ‘up’ and ‘down’,

more deeply, and with a sense of joy.