Out of harmony

“But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?”

— Camus

Some sayings don’t make sense the first time you hear them. If we are what we eat, then I’m a bag of buttered popcorn combined with nihari, biryani and haleem. And if happiness is truly harmony between a man and the life that he leads, then my first thought is that the good Lord better have mercy on us because we all feel we’re stuck in a horrendous never-ending rut.

Most of us go to work every day and follow pretty much the same routine. For women, that routine includes not just our nine to five jobs, but the responsibilities of being homemakers as well. Work seems to be never-ending and one step forward often means two steps back. When does the constant rat race end, we all tend to wonder?

We don’t think that routine is the key to success and emotional balance. At least, this is what I’ve heard from most people I’ve spoken to. How, then, can we ever find harmony and happiness?

For years, I kept looking for ways to make a significant difference in Pakistan; or, at least, a big enough impact for my life to have ‘real’ meaning. Every day I would sit for hours between shoots and events, charting out my so-called game plan for life.

As I’ve learnt, there were two fundamental problems with this approach. First, life never quite turned out how I had pre-planned it. And I was too often focused on fixing the future to enjoy the wonderful moments that did occasionally show up. Second, I was so busy focusing on what I was going to do in the future that I used to lose track of what I was supposed to be doing in the present.

I can’t claim to have found harmony, but I do realise now that I need to stop and smell the roses more often. And yes, there are moments worth savouring here in Pakistan as well.

To come back to Camus, I think his point is that happiness is to be found in struggling to achieve what you want, not necessarily in getting what you want. Most people don’t change the world and it is unrealistic to expect that they will. The important thing though is that they should try.

My best friend lives in Canada. She is always asking me, “Why are you in Pakistan?”

My response to her has two parts. First, we perpetually focus on the bad, like honour killings and terrorism, but we forget the beauty of our poetry, our stories and our history. The point is to care and to respect that which is ours. I feel an ownership, a sense of belonging to Pakistan, which no matter how hard I tried, I didn’t feel towards Canada.

Second, it’s important to me that I try in my own way to make a difference. I have tried that all my life and I will keep on trying. I believe that this country is beautiful and that it holds immense promise for me, and more so, for my son. Yes, there is much that there is wrong with Pakistan. Nobody is saying it is perfect. But there is enough to admire that makes Pakistan worth fighting for.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 20^th, 2014.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.