Happy Currency in London

Currently I am sitting in the London Lounge at Heathrow airport waiting for a connecting flight to Toronto. My journey home is half way completed and so far very average and uneventful. No screaming children, no lost passports and no delayed flights. Now the reason I felt compelled to blog right now is, well one, I’m bored and need to kill 5 hours but more importantly I am stuck by how the smallest things make life just that little bit better. For me, today, sitting in this airport, it’s individually wrapped packages of cheese. Edam, Gouda, Cheddar… Oh my god they are so delicious. I know that sounds crazy but finding real, fresh and tasty cheese in Mumbai is not always an easy thing to do and certainly not cheap. My girls are feeling the love too filling up on fresh ham with crackers and hot chocolate. They are giddy with excitement with every bite.

However as I am savouring every orgasmic morsel, I happened to glance at the tv across the way. CNN is on the screen and they are showing graphic footage from the fighting in Syria. And it made me start thinking about what do people really need to be happy. In the Middle East and many parts of the world it’s as simple as peace, safety and a place to call home. Actually let me rephrase- it’s not very simple in fact, it’s almost impossible as country after country fight to find their way towards a better future.  Again as I am writing this I accidentally eaves drop on a conversation behind me. An older woman is talking about flying home and seeing her daughter who she hasn’t seen in 5 years. This is her happiness- time with family. On the other side of me is a baby who is just being pacified with a warm bottle. A warm meal;her happy currency. And as usual, in my abstract way, I started thinking about the idea of happy currency. If like other currencies, they can be traded, valued and devalued, stolen and recovered what would this mean for happiness? Is it worth investing in a highrisk investment of happiness knowing that the consequence might mean losing it all? Or is it smarter to stay safe and invest your happy currency in a low risk steady growth savings bond? And if you lose it all in one bet, can you recoup your losses?

One small piece of cheese is making me incredibly happy right now in this one moment so what does that say about me. Does it mean I selfishly, only focus on spending my currency as soon as I get it without investing in the future? Or does it mean I am one of the many who have no idea what to do with their wealth? I don’t think so. I think I am a savvy investor who has placed a huge chunk of my currency in long term safe investments like my family, friends and health so that I can spend a little freely on the smaller things in life to make it just a little bit easier. With that said, it also means that when I am feeling broke in the happy bank, I need to realize that I already have a lot more happiness than many and that if for some reason I don’t have some of my smaller comforts then perhaps I don’t need them so much after all.