There is always the sun behind the clouds. Living happily. Tatiana Grafova
I was in my third year at the University, I fell head over heels in love.
Our love affair developed at a sky-rocketing speed. I was even introduced to his parents.
But alas, it didn’t last long.
When we had a serious quarrel and parted,
I locked myself in my room and cried for several days on end.
I refused to eat and drink.
I seriously thought that my life was over, that I would never fall in love with anybody else, that I would never be happy again.
Nothing could distract me from my sad thoughts and cheer me up.
Nobody could comfort me, no matter how hard they tried.
Once at the University when I was still getting over our separation and instead of going to the next lecture was crying my heart out on the stairs, one of my professors, a woman, came up to me and said: “If you are crying because of a boy, stop it immediately. There is only one thing that’s worth shedding your tears over: it is the death or an incurable desease of somebody who is very dear to you. The rest are trifles that are not worth getting upset about, to say nothing of crying over”.
At that point I found it hard to take her word for it and even more difficult to follow her advice.
It was only later that I fully realized the truth and wisdom of her words.
It is a well-known fact that time is the best doctor.
It cures all wounds, including those of the soul.
Some time passed and I understood: “Life goes on and this old world will keep on turning”, despite everything.
Some more time passed and it dawned on me that I was very lucky indeed that we had parted then. As it turned out later, what my lover was really after was my Moscow registration. In those days marrying a Muscovite was the easiest and most pleasant way of staying in the capital and getting a good job after graduation from the University.
I learnt, among other things, that he had dated other girls as well, kept them in reserve, so to speak. Just to be on the safe side. He must have had a very pragmatic turn of mind and thought: If it doesn’t work out with one girl, it may work out with somebody else.
Eventually he got what he wanted and married a Muskovite.
Thank God, it was not me and our affair didn’t go much further than it actually had.
Now I’m fully convinced that whatever happens is always for the better.
But the problem is: this revelation often comes a little too late, only upon second thoughts.
And until this wise thought finally dawns upon us, we are torturing ourselves, like Sado-Masochists. And this is definitely not the best line of action.
Train yourself to believe that whatever happens is really always for the best.
I try not to forget the wise lines from the Russian film “Let’s live till Monday”:
“There is room for everything in our life: Good lives side by side with Evil.
If your fiancee abandons you for somebody else, it’s hard to to say who is the luckier and better off in the long run”.
I can’t help but agree with that.
And what about you?
An anecdote about the optimistic attitude to life
(heard by my Austrian friend in a restaurant in Rostov-on-Don)
A prisoner sentenced to death is sitting in his cell looking out of the window.
Suddenly he sees a prison guard crossing the yard with a bottle of vodka in his hand.
Hoping against hope that this bottle is meant for him, he exclaims:
“Life seems to be improving!”
Here is another example to illustrate the difference between an optimist and a pessimist:
Two prisoners sharing a prison cell are both looking out of the barred window but one of them only sees the mud and dirt under the feet of the passers-by, while the other one is watching the bright stars in the clear sky.
Try to be an optimist.
Don’t concentrate on the dirt below your feet.
Better look up at the stars.
If you have half a glass of water, choose to believe that it is half-full, as an optimist would say, rather than half-empty as a pessimist would be tempted to think.
It’s probably much easier to find a fly in the ointment, or find fault with little things and let them spoil your day or even your whole life, than to see a small ray of light in complete darkness and courageously follow it.
But perhaps, one shouldn’t take the line of least resistance and always swim with the current?
Well, here we come to …
The third commandment of a happy woman:
Never allow yourself to forget that there is always the sun behind the clouds, that whenever God strikes us on one cheek It always strokes the other.
Try to look on the bright side, choose to walk on the sunny side of the street and pay little or no attention to its dark, shadow side.
Learn to be a cheerful optimist and to think positive.
Chapter four
Movement is life
Mens sana in corpore sanum.
If you remember to do your exercise,
you walk as if the whole world belongs to you.
Movement is life, or, in other words, to move means to live.
Everybody knows this phrase.
But very few of us fully realize that these are not mere words, or stories invented by coaches and doctors.
This is the harsh reality of life.
A modern woman, for the most part, leads a sedantary way of life.
I would even say, too sedantary.
We sit at school and at the University, in the office and in front of our home PC or laptop.
We sit at the wheel of our cars and in the passenger seat on the plane.
We sit at the airport waiting for our flight to be announced, then on board the plane waiting first for take-off and then for landing, to say nothing of the flight time itself.
To make the long story short, we sit too much and we don’t move enough.
To use a more sophisticated and scientific turn of phrase, we all suffer from hypodynamia, which, in simple terms, means lack or deficit of movement.
It’s no use arguing this point.
This is the sad reality of the twenty-first century.
If you want to be fit both physically and psychologically and to look and feel accordingly, start doing something about it immediately.
I don’t mean anything extraordinary or out of this world.
Simply start to move more, to lead a generally more active way of life.
However, try to understand me correctly.
There is no need for extremes or heroic deeds.
I’m