The Long Journey to Happiness

Book description My book contains two parts. The first part of the book discusses the concept of happiness in general, and in a relationship between a man and a woman in particular. Most people regard happiness as an integrated concept. That makes experiencing its magical wonders seem to be an impossible task. In my book, I perceive it as a harmonious combination of various elements. If one attempts to experience each of its components, one will end up achieving happiness. I do believe that one can be happy if one could attain physical satisfaction, enjoy mental stimulation, experience emotional fulfillment and achieve spiritual evolution. A successful career, a loving family and devoted friends, a healthy environment, in which one can harmoniously coexist with ones fellow human beings, and an excellent health may facilitate ones route to happiness. I examine every element focusing on the various perceptions pertinent to it, the factors, that may play a role in achieving it, and the means to attain it. At the end of that part, I enclose criteria that one may use, to evaluate ones relationship with ones partner, to determine if it is mutually satisfying or not. One might be in a mutually satisfying relationship if ones partner enhances ones life not alter it, fills ones heart with joy and laughter, respects ones views not puts them down, satisfies ones physically, stimulates ones mentally and evolves with one spiritually, accepts one as he or she is, and never attempts to change him or her, and appreciates one all the time not only on special occasions. Those criteria might not be suitable for some couples. In that case, they should define, their own, criteria for examining the degree of their satisfaction with one another. The second part focuses on slightly fictionalized true events about the relationship between, ENRICO, a reasonably handsome chubby Arabic-Canadian educator, in his middle fifties, and ANNABELLA, an attractive Mongolian-Chinese woman, in her late forties. Despite the fact that they were brought together, in 2003, by unusual circumstances caused by the SARS Epidemic, a fatal disease that claimed many Chinese lives in 2003, they were destined to meet and fall in love with one another. They started as coworkers and progressed toward a friendship that developed into a passionate, yet full of conflicts, love relationship. At the beginning of their courtship, they were blinded, by the excitement of being in love, to see that their journey, to happiness, would be paved with obstacles that were caused by the differences in their racial and religious backgrounds. At that time, they were residing in a country entrapped in a net of old traditions, which restricted communications between the two genders. Consequently, one can imagine the difficulties that they had to overcome, to keep their friendship from being a favorite topic of gossip, among those, who shared their environment. At the time of their first encounter, ANNABELLA was married to a Mongolian individual, while ENRICO was a divorced man. That made their interactions, with one another, a difficult task, to say the least. Fortunate or unfortunate for them, depending upon ones views, they were working together. He was hired as an educator and she was his immediate supervisor. That facilitated their encounters. They were instantaneously attracted to each other, not only physically but also mentally. Their mental compatibility was apparent to both of them from the beginning. Chinese society doesnt accept being unhappy, in a marriage, as a valid reason for asking for a divorce. That fact made it hard for ANNABELLA to ask for a divorce, from her husband of 18 years, with whom she had two children. Motivated by her belief that she should sacrifice her own happiness to provide her children with a stable environment, she stayed with him for that long. Upon experiencing true happiness with ENRICO, she realized t