The End. – Or why I left my job.

Once upon a time, in a land far away hidden in between Mountains, lived a mighty King. He was a young King, but a determined one. Never thought that his youth would be a time for enjoyment of life and discoveries and experiencing Love as so many idly do. Instead he thought he was destined to gain power and be much talked about. And so he ventured to conquer what he thought was rightly his. He led many battles and won them all. Or at least they say. And in our memories we only know of what the Emperor says so surely it must be true. And yes, Emperor, for he had conquered so much land that he was now titled as such.

Youth, however, was leaving him. And coming into a respectable age of adulthood, the Emperor thought that all this wealth, land and power could eventually be used for something beneficial for the rest of the world.

You see, he wasn’t a heartless Emperor, and believing as he did in ancient religions, it was time for him to think of giving back. And so he took a piece of land from his vast territory, made-up a name for it and ordered this place to be only populated by happy people so that their happiness would be seen as a model and spread into the rest of the world. It was a beautiful idea, it has to be said, and yet it is quite plain to see that the Emperor could not envision “giving back” any other way than how he had always led his life: the purpose always being to conquer more things.

And so he ventured to find the happiest people in his territory and send them to that country. The problem was, himself not knowing much about happiness, he wasn’t very good at it. Acknowledging that he needed help, and also not wanting to spend time on something so trivial, he asked the council of his priest and sent him to do his biding.

The priest, on the other hand, was very successful. He gathered a small group of people that slowly but surely grew and could nicely fit into the little country. But happiness is a state of life that, sometimes, may be altered. I assure you, it is quite possible for unhappy people to become happy. Sadly, so is its contrary. And so when someone had the misfortune of becoming too obviously unhappy, that person was kicked out of the country. It is quite fascinating though that them being kicked out often brought back their happiness. Who would’ve thought that, if they were happy outside of the country, something must have happened inside of it to make them unhappy? Not I surely.

And so the little country had quite the rotating population.

The Emperor, to remedy the constant change of these subjects, knighted three of his favourite happy people and ordered them to lead the others so that they would all remain happy forever. The three Knights, took their orders very seriously. But it soon dawned on them that themselves had to remain happy to be kept at their station. And so their primary goal was their Self-Satisfaction. And when that wasn’t possible, they at least had the decency of pretending it was the case in front of the Emperor. And avoiding eye contact with subjects that were too observant.

The other subjects, following in their leaders footsteps, became masters in the art of Feigning their mood. Or at least some of them were, the ones who wouldn’t master Deception just continued leaving the country.

In the end, this whole state of affairs had the Unforeseen and Unfathomable effect of making everybody quite miserable. The three Knights were trying to satisfy an insatiable man, forgetting about their Subjects who, themselves, were trying to make the now unhappy and Self-Involved Knights happy, and in the process of this impossible quest, the people made themselves unhappy. That is a lot of unhappiness going around if I may say so.

It has to be noted that the priest, who was still the Emperor’s right arm and through whom every decision in the kingdom had to go through first, tried his best to remedy the situation. He, indeed, did a very good job at making himself indispensable to the Emperor and keeping his high status. That was probably the extent of his achievements. But very important achievements they were.

And here our tale comes to an end.

I hope you find it very unsatisfactory. Because there will be no other end until each and everyone of these [Pretend] People Pleasers learn that they do not exist to impress the world. You exist to live Your life in a way that will make You happy.

What makes You happy?

The End.

XoXo – With deepest Sympathies and Forgiveness.