You Need to Be Happy
HAVANA TIMES – Coming across ruins in Old Havana is commonplace. But if the building in question bears graffiti with the phrase “you need to be happy,” it’s sure to change the rhythm of your day.
Throughout the rest of the morning, I kept pondering the graffiti artist’s intention: Was it a wake-up call? A reminder that happiness is a human right?
In the context of today’s Cuba, happiness is a questionable state. We all know that happiness is subjective and depends on how we view life, our ability to face challenges, the plans and goals we set, and our priorities. But what happens when we can’t carry out our plans due to obstacles beyond our control? When we can’t achieve emotional fulfillment because we’re too focused on surviving?
Achieving and maintaining mental health in an environment that deprives you of basic needs is utopian. Facing reality without illusions requires resilience that not everyone possesses.
Talking about happiness when the day-to-day life of Cubans is an avalanche of uncertainties feels like an affront worth listing: shortages of food, medicine, water, transportation; insufficient salaries; lack of care for the elderly; and families fractured by emigration.
If scarcity causes us stress, if we can’t reconcile ourselves with a reality that prevents us from reaching our goals, if positivity is reduced to declaring that we’ll at least manage rice and beans for lunch and dinner, that we’ll have electricity and water for a few hours, and that our appliances won’t break down due to power outages… then I invite Happiness to spend some time in Cuba. Surely, upon leaving, it will depart hand in hand with sorrow.