A heart in Hand II

The Summer Cupid

(If you missed the beginning of the story, you can read Part 1 right here)

“What would you like to order together?” the waiter asked.

“We are not together,” I replied quickly.

Just a minute prior, I had set my bag down on an empty chair to rummage for something stuck at the very bottom. It was summer, the only time of year the restaurant moved its tables and chairs out onto the sidewalk. If it hadn’t been for the warm weather, those outdoor chairs wouldn't have been there, and our paths never would have crossed. But they did. The man sitting at the table next to my bag used the moment to introduce himself. Before I left, he asked for my contact information. I gave him my Instagram handle, assuming nothing would come of it, and he headed back to work. That was our meet-cute, and the waiter was our unexpected Cupid. Thank God for summer. 

The mechanics of Happiness

The trumpet sounds, highlighting the end of the world.

Or at least, that is what his mind decided in a split second of absolute terror. There he was, sitting in the bathtub in the middle of a quiet afternoon, completely buried under a mountain of white bubble foam. Without warning, it all went black. It wasn’t the slow, natural fade of a late evening, but a sudden, violent, suffocating darkness.

Panic hit him like a physical blow. I am too young, he thought, his heart hammering against his ribs. Please, not now. Can the end times be moved just a little further down the road? When I am old? When I have actually achieved my dreams in life?

Growing up, this was exactly how the final hour had always been described: there would be no warning, no grand announcement. A single celestial trumpet would shatter the sky, and the righteous would simply vanish, lifted up into the ether.

He sat frozen in the pitch-black bathroom, covered in soap, waiting for the reckoning. Then, after roughly ten minutes of agonizing existential solitude in the dark, a voice shattered the silence from down the hallway: "Hurry up and come for dinner!"

His mother.

It turns out it wasn't the rapture; it was just a blown fuse. What an out-of-this-world experience. That is precisely what happens when someone watches too many apocalyptic movies—the imagination hijacks reality, and a person starts inventing the end of days over a bar of soap.

Yet, long after the lights clicked back on and the adrenaline faded, the question refused to leave him. What if it had truly been the end? What would I have actually done with my life? A quiet, stubborn voice inside him answered: I need to follow my dreams. But as he sat there, looking at the ordinary architecture of his current life, a much heavier question began to pound: Am I even happy right now? What is happiness, and how can one be authentically happy?

Whether you are currently rewriting marketing history or simply going about your daily lab job unnoticed by the world, happiness remains an entirely internal definition. The grand illusion of modern society dictates that the keys to joy are wealth and fame. We are told to push harder, run faster, and accumulate more. But the true mechanics of happiness are entirely in your own control. The working formula is completely unique to you. You are the engineer of your own internal engine—you determine exactly how it spins, the speed with which it rotates, and the momentum it carries.

The truth is, humans are remarkably adaptable creatures. We get used to our circumstances, no matter how chaotic or mundane, and we instinctively find a way to discover the small, quiet joys of life within them. We learn to accept things. More importantly, we learn not to let our immediate circumstances define who we are or who we become. We don't get to live life twice, so why spend the majority of the time in discontent?

Image source: Unsplash

Whenever you find yourself slipping into that dangerous cycle of complaining, ponder the beautiful, grounding perspective shared by Sue Ann Goh:

Shaping Tomorrow: Are We Building Our Cities the Right Way? An Invitation to Discuss the Future of Real Estate

 When I first closely studied a city blueprint – those intricate maps dictating where schools, supermarkets, residential zones, shopping facilities, doctors, and pharmacies should ideally be within walking distance – I was utterly fascinated. For hours, I'd pore over the details, lost in the logic of planned communities.

Yet, a stark reality often strikes me: in many of our cities, this ideal planning is far from achieved. Buildings spring up, seemingly at random, and infrastructure like roads has to be shoehorned in retrospectively. It often feels like one problem simply gives birth to the next.

I've often found myself wondering: Is it truly feasible to build underground subways in already developed areas? Would we need to demolish existing structures, compensating owners? Who would ever be okay with their home being destroyed, and where would they live? These are fundamental, weighty questions that demand thoughtful answers.

 

A Journey Through Urban Perspectives

Years later, sitting in an urban planning seminar, tasked with critiquing buildings and their surroundings, my observations continued. "Yes, this area lacks sufficient green spaces, it's rather overcrowded." I pondered: are towering skyscrapers and additional subways, on top of our existing transport networks, genuinely the optimal path forward?

This tension between rigid structure and natural flow always makes me think of the legendary architect Zaha Hadid. When she first broke onto the scene, people widely believed her fluid, radical urban visions were completely impossible to build. Critics wanted the short way out—the standard, predictable linear grid. But she firmly believed that buildings shouldn't just be box-shaped blocks, and she famously refused to draw straight lines. You can see this absolute defiance of the box in her masterpiece, the Heydar Aliyev Center, where the walls, floors, and roof melt into a single, breathtaking white wave. Her courage proved that these sweeping, organic ideas could physically exist in our real world, showing that architecture can bend to serve human imagination rather than forcing us to live inside rigid, soul-crushing concrete boxes.

Zaha Hadid's masterpiece: The Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku. (Photo: Azerbaijan.travel)

Then, a course on Gender Perspectives on Urban Development shifted my entire outlook. I began to view my surroundings through a completely different lens. My focus moved to the basics: Where are the accessible walkways and pavements for strollers? Are there enough safe playgrounds for children? Are there convenient seating areas for mothers to rest after a long walk? Where are the community gardens where families can enjoy picnics? And how do we ensure universal access to clean, safe water?