"Happiness is made of small things"

Sometimes, a kid hugs you. Apparently, there is no reason. Or, at least, you don't know the reason. But you hug him back. Instant happiness!

Since my last article was about how to stay up when your life goes down, today I want to share with you one of the (almost) daily small thing which makes me really happy, which can lift my day up. But before, some context about why today.

This Sunday is the International Day of Happiness. This is quite new thing, established by the United Nations in 2012. All the 193 countries reunited there agreed to recognise that happiness must be one of the cornerstones for the economy of the 21th Century, along with sustainable development and the eradication of poverty. Almost a human right.

But, what is happiness?? You will be agree with me that it is not something you can touch; barely you can see it. It's an state of mind, a feeling you may express or not; something that can be a thing for me and the opposite for you.

For some countries, as Bhutan, the happiness can be measured, as a result of culture programs, the preservation of the environment, the quality of the political system and its politicians, and the economical development. And some business as Coca-Cola doesn't stop claiming they are the happiness itself; they even say Coca-Cola means happiness in some languages.

The one and only actor Groucho Marx said: "happiness is made of small things: a small yacht, a small manor, a small fortune..." I have to say I'm half agree with him; maybe happiness is not a small fortune, but it's made of small things. Actually, for me, I'm starting to believe that happiness is laying between big things, like small stones between the grass. That doesn't means that "big stones" does not bring you happiness as well.

There is a moment in my daily routine that I wouldn't change for anything in the World. Neither "a small yacht, a small manor and a small fortune". It's a really small thing, but it makes my day, bringing me back to that state of mind, in case I left it at home.

Everyday we take lunch at Pousadinha, not only Juventude Vila Fonche's hostel, but also the kindergarten and the cafeteria. Some days we arrive earlier, and the kindergarten children are still finishing their food.

One day, at the beginning of my EVS, I started to greet them, shaking hands. I did it as one of my uncles used to do with me: shaking not the hand, but the entire arm. Maybe one or two become crazy: smiling, laughing and yelling. The others doesn't be very interested. Maybe I scared them... Anyway, I continued doing that for the next months...

Yesterday, just to say a particular day, we arrived early to Pousadinha again. Almost all the kids had done with they lunch, and they were ready to go to their classroom. But as soon they saw us, Agnes and me, they started to raise their hands and wave them, to call us, to jump and shake... To smile. Full smile within their bright faces. They were barely standing in the queue that their teachers ask them to follow to go up the stairs to its class room.

I smiled back and I started shaking hands and arms with them; sometimes with two or three at the same time, because they're a lot. And most of the times, they wanted me to shake both arms. Of course, once is not enough, and they want to repeat again and again, until their teachers tell them to go up. Then, we said goodbye, all laughing and smiling.

This is happiness for me. Love and appreciation; sharing, giving and taking, which is directly related with volunteering; sweetness. I wrote in another article that happiness is "to dream, to travel, to be joyful, complete and nonconformist. To smile. All small things.

Do you need a "small fortune" now?