Read Online Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex by Anne Frank - Free Book Online Page B

it’s silly to argue with people you don’t care about. It’s different withpeople you do care about. You love them, so when they start an argument or do something to provoke a quarrel, it makes you feel more hurt than angry!’
    ‘Do you think so too? But you don’t get into very many arguments, do you?’
    ‘No, but enough to know what they’re like! Still, the worst thing of all is that most people are alone in the world!’
    ‘What do you mean by that?’ Jacques’s eyes were now fixed on mine, but I decided to continue; perhaps I might be able to help him.
    ‘I mean that most people, whether or not they’re married, are lonely inside. They have no one to talk to about their thoughts and emotions. That’s what I miss the most!’
    All Jacques said was, ‘Me too.’ Then we went back to gazing at the sky for a while before he remarked, ‘Like you said, people who don’t have anyone to talk to are missing out on a lot – a whole lot. It’s knowing what I’m missing that often makes me feel so depressed.’
    ‘Well, you shouldn’t. Not that you shouldn’t feel depressed – after all, you can’t help that, but you shouldn’t feel miserable about something before it happens. Actually, what you’re hoping to find when you’re depressed is happiness. Even if you miss a lot because you have no one to talk to, once you’ve found your own inner happiness, you’ll never lose it. I don’t mean this in terms of material things, but in a spiritual sense. I believe that once your own inner happiness has been found, it might go underground for a while, but it will never be lost!’
    ‘So how did you find your happiness?’
    I got to my feet. ‘Come with me,’ I said. And I led him up to the attic, where there was a little storage room with a window. Our house was taller than most, so that, once we’d reached the attic and were looking out of the window, we could see a large patch of sky.
    ‘Take a look,’ I said. ‘If you want to find inner happiness, go outside on a nice day with lots of sun and blue sky. Even if you stand at a window and look out over the city at the cloudless sky, like we’re doing now, you’ll eventually find happiness.
    ‘I’ll tell you how it happened to me. I was at boarding school. It had always been awful, but the older I got, the more awful it got. On one of my free afternoons, I went for a walk on the heath by myself. I sat down and daydreamed for a while, and when I looked up, I noticed that it was an exceptionally beautiful day. I hadn’t paid any attention to the weather up till then, because I’d been too wrapped up in my own troubles. But once I looked up and saw the beauty of my surroundings, that little voice inside me suddenly stopped itemizing the bad things. All I could do or think or feel was that it was beautiful, that it was the only real truth.
    ‘I must have sat there for half an hour. When I finally got up to go back to that hateful school, I was no longer depressed. On the contrary, I felt that everything was good and beautiful just the way it was.
    ‘Later on I understood that I had found my own inner happiness for the first time that afternoon. No matter what the circumstances are, that happiness will be with you always.’
    ‘Did it change you?’ he quietly asked.
    ‘Yes, in the sense that I felt a certain contentment. Not always, mind you. I moaned and groaned from time to time. But I was never downright depressed again, probably because I realized that sadness comes from feeling sorry for yourself and happiness from joy.’
    I stopped talking and he kept looking out of the window, apparently lost in thought, because he didn’t say a word. Then he suddenly turned and looked at me. ‘I haven’t found happiness yet, but I have found something else – a person who understands me!’
    I knew what he meant, and from that moment on I was no longer alone.
     
    Sunday, 12 March 1944

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