Happiness, Measuring Feelings

Wanderlino Arruda

Happiness has no weight
and it has no measure.
It can’t be bought,
and it can’t be loaned;
it can’t be borrowed,
it doesn’t resist calculus,
because it’s not material,
by the material standards of our world.
It can be only legitimate.
False happiness is not real happiness,
it’s only illusion.

If I knew how to make calculations
for measuring feelings,
I would say that happiness could have size.
It could be great, small,
fitting in the palm of my hand,
or being as large as the world.
Happiness is wisdom, hope,
wanting to go,
wanting to stay,
present, past, future.

Happiness is confidence:
faith and belief, work and action.
We can’t be hasty about being happy,
because happiness comes slowly,
as one who cares for nothing.

To be happy doesn’t depend on money,
it doesn’t depend on health, nor power.
Happiness isn’t ostentation, nor luxury.
Happiness is the unfastening.
It isn’t ambition.

We’re happy only when we know how to care,
and how to lose,
to suffer and to pardon.
Happiness is only possible,
when we know, over all, how to love,
when we know how to live a loving life.