Tea Conversation

Sometimes Happiness Is a Full Tank

Sometimes happiness turns out to be nowhere near where you expected to find it.
Today, shortly after four in the morning, Kolya and I drove to the gas station. It was still dark.
The city was only beginning to wake up.
We were driving in search of a scarce resource, relying on luck and hoping that this time we would succeed.
Then, by half past five, something incredible happened: we managed to get thirty liters of gasoline.
Now Kolya has a full tank.
It would seem ordinary enough: you fill up the car, so what is special about that?
Yet that was how it felt only until today. Usually, you simply pull in, fill the tank, and drive on.

Now a full tank has become an event, almost a celebration.
More than that, it has become happiness and good fortune.
So the old saying is true: misfortune can sometimes lead to happiness.
There is also no bad without some good.

Scarcity is, of course, unpleasant.
It narrows your options, restricts you, and forces you to calculate, search, wait, and catch the right moment.
Yet it has a strange quality: it restores the flavor of ordinary things.

In other words, it creates a celebration out of what once went unnoticed and suddenly becomes valuable.

Today gasoline is not merely fuel; it is a celebration.
It is also the possibility of movement.
It is a reserve of free time.
At the same time, it is peace of mind and confidence at home.

All Life Is a Game

This brought back a game about an island and its president.
The task was to raise the people’s happiness level to sixty-two percent.
That was when everything began; there was almost nothing I did not try for those people.
I tried to make them happy with benefits, conveniences, improvements, and leisure: everything for the people and everything for their happiness.

Yet all these efforts produced only a brief surge of joy, after which the happiness percentage fell again.
Resources were already running out, so I had to change the strategy of the game.
I sold all their benefits, used the money to buy profitable businesses, and put the people to work.

As a result, production began generating profit, and the system gained a solid foundation.
Then, with the surplus profit, I bought that unhappy little population a Ferris wheel.

It was only a Ferris wheel, yet their happiness soared.
The task was complete.

How could that be? They had possessed so much and remained dissatisfied.
I returned only one wheel to them, and suddenly they were happy?
Could people really need just one Ferris wheel for happiness?
No.
The point was not the wheel alone.

The point was that a foundation had already appeared beneath it.
It included loss, longing, need, the path toward achievement, a platform, and confidence in tomorrow.

The businesses were working, the flow had begun, and the future had become more stable.
Moreover, life was no longer based on waiting and the distribution of benefits.

Then the Ferris wheel became not a toy, but a sign.

A sign that life does more than survive.
It can also look around.
Rejoice.
Breathe.
Rise above the ordinary level of the ground.

A benefit without a foundation gives a brief surge, while a foundation without joy remains dry.
It turns out that happiness is born where stability meets celebration.

The full tank worked almost the same way.

An ordinary visit to a gas station, under conditions of scarcity, suddenly became a sign.

Happiness rose not because gasoline itself is a miracle.

It rose because gasoline had gained value.

It turns out that longing for comfort and convenience increases the value of those benefits.
That is why people say that a lost knife has a golden handle.

The Sun Never Disappeared

While this thought was being written down, thunder suddenly rolled outside the window.
Lightning flashed, and a downpour began.
How could that be? The sun had been shining only a moment before.
Then I saw a wonder. Lightning flashed, thunder rolled, heavy rain poured down, and the sun was still shining.

There was simply a small black cloud hanging at the zenith.

Thunder.
Lightning.
Rain.
A dark patch of sky.
And the Sun.

Everything came in one package, together with summer, warmth, the holiday season, and a full tank of gasoline.

When a resource leaves the background, it returns as happiness.
When the foundation becomes strong during scarcity, a small joy can raise the happiness of an entire island.
And when a black cloud arrives, the Sun does not disappear; it merely checks whether we still know how to rejoice in it.