Clones of someone else

FROM Joan Chittister’s book “Happiness”:

“Happiness, it is clear, requires a great deal of self-knowledge. Somewhere along the way in life, if we really want to be happy, we need to begin to be ourselves rather than clones of someone else.”

Clones of someone else. Hmmm. That reminds me of people who believe that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, making them so jealous and envious of that other side, and leaving them with no time to focus on their own selves. At the same time, they also believe they’re perfect, so they gossip about other people hoping that will cover up their own imperfections.

There’s this one gossiper who sat on the chair for VIPs. So, that’s how she looks at herself now: a VIP. Feelingera. I heard she has recruited two other gossipers and all three of them are now busy gossiping about whoever has caught their ire. It’s all fun and games until…they’re gossiping about each other, because that day will definitely arrive.

They should get a copy of “Happiness” where Chittister wrote, “It comes down to this: happiness is within our grasp, but it’s not free. It doesn’t just happen. It takes a reorientation of our own mental habits to both realize it and maintain it. Most of all, the achievement of happiness requires a commitment to bend the arc of our lives in the direction of the things that count in life rather than toward the trinkets that decorate it.”

Do unhappy people love to gossip? Perhaps that’s the only way they can attract the attention of the curious?

If only people will help each other instead of gossiping about each other, everyone will be happy.

Now, who has the time to gossip? Not exactly the idle. Gossipers do have work, and they’re as busy as bees as they buzz from one curious listener to the next. There’s just something about them that makes them gossip as if they’re the ideal that everyone else should emulate.

They have, hmmm, lofty standards that they believe only they can reach. They won’t even help you even if it’s their responsibility to help you. They’ll simply observe every breath you take, and then pounce on you once you’ve made what they believe is a mistake.

If an event is ho-hum, surely there’s a gossiper who made it worse: the self-appointed critic who won’t lift a finger to make the event successful. Seeing people fail is what makes her happy.

Is gossiping the result of envy and jealousy? But the gossiper can never be someone else. She has to realize she can only be herself. Her problem is she refuses to embrace her uniqueness. Instead, she wants everyone else to be like her, and to like her. Kawawa naman.

How to be you po? is one way to express admiration for an idol. But if that question means how to become the idol, it will only lead to frustration and disappointment since a person has his own gifts and talents that other people can never copy. I mean, can Mariah Carey sing like Barbra Streisand? Of course not. Can Miley Cyrus morph into Taylor Swift? Nope.

It’s time for the clones of someone else to realize that they’re “nothing, but a second-rate trying hard copycat.”