IN SEARCH OF HAPPINESS OUTSIDE A RELATIONSHIP: LESSONS FROM CARTOONS

By Adebisi Olatunji-Legend

IN SEARCH OF HAPPINESS OUTSIDE A RELATIONSHIP: LESSONS FROM CARTOONS

“…Yet here I am, my belly empty and my heart full” King Grittle. Trolls (2016)

My husband never really understands why I love to watch animations. He thinks they are for children and too unreal and he calls everything cartoons. That’s exactly why I love them. Most of these animations or cartoons are made with the youngsters in mind; they usually are less offensive, less violent (even the ones with violence are not as severe as watching real humans because you know it’s just not real!). They are also often subtle in their plots and messages and are sometimes basically just plain innocent movies that don’t try to twist your mind.

But what I love most about this type of movies is how some of them carry deep moral lessons in quite a simplified way. It’s cute. One of such movies and my favorite from recent is Trolls.

So the Trolls are tiny, colorful, glittery, happy creatures; and all they do is hug, sing, dance…hug, sing, dance… like round the clock. Then there are the Bergens – grumpy, miserable, and grey. One day, a Bergen discovered the trolls and wanted some of their happiness, so he ate one and indeed he was happy! The Bergens then started a yearly tradition to each eat a troll on a holiday they called Trollstice in order to have a taste of happiness.

Fast forward to the lessons from this movie –

Happiness is from within.

The little Bergen prince woke up happy, smiley and excited on his first Trollstice holiday. He had never tasted a troll in his life, but he was already happy at the thought of having to eat a troll that was meant to make him happy.

Unfortunately for this particular trollstice holiday, the trolls had escaped. These bergens who were initially chanting with smiles in their faces were completely devastated because now, they would never ever be happy again.

We don’t need things to be happy. Happiness is a choice, a state of the mind, and our minds have total control over this state than any external factor. It is true that things that we get or that happen to us do make us happy, however, it is totally unhealthy to attach our joy to such things. Stuff and acquisitions are as temporary as they come, and situations are not always favourable so when we depend on external happenings to make us happy, we may end up being like one of the bergens especially when things don’t seem to be happening the way we want them to. It doesn’t take something to happen to us, it takes us recognizing our capacity to carry happiness as long as we think it. Just like the bergens who were happy only at the thought of eating a troll.

All hope is not lost.

The Bergen prince found happiness again. Years after the unfortunate and last Trollstice holiday, he (now the king) met and fell in love with Lady Glitterspakles (Bridget the scullery maid in disguise) and he was once again happy even though he didn’t realise it. We all have it inside of us, sometimes we just need someone to help us find it.

There are times we feel like nothing is working and we lose hope in a bright and better life but truly all hope is not lost. We need to open our hearts and welcome the possibility of dreams becoming reality. Hope gives us happiness (even if it feels like too much pizza or ice-cream) and an open heart welcomes Love as it comes. And when we tie our happiness to tangible things, we never even recognise it when we truly feel happy.

There’s a story of a man who had things going wrong at some point, and worse still his new car got damaged in an accident. Yet his mood didn’t change and when his wife asked him why he didn’t seem moved about what happened, he answered “whether I’m happy or sad, we’d still have a damaged car”.