Ladies and gentlemen, good morning!

Last week I had a lunch date with an old friend, who is also a student here. We had a conversation where she poured her heart out to me and I listened, sympathised, and tried to advise her to the best of my ability. It turned out we shared many of the grievances of our lives, and so we spent a pleasant half an hour whining about them to each other. We didn't have any motivation. We didn't know what we wanted to be when we grew up. We didn't have boyfriends. We felt like we were wasting our youth and potential. And while we were talking, I suddenly realised one of the inalienable truths of life — coming out of my own mouth, no less — and probably ended up helping myself more than her. I would like to try and dissect this truth now, even though I suspect it's old news to many of you.

I am the biggest problem of my life.

Most of everything that goes awry in my life can be traced back to me. The irksome little inconveniences. The bothersome little changes of course. The unexpected cul-de-sac moments. The catastrophes . . .

The one common factor in all these little or big misfortunes is none other than Yours Truly. I was there when I overslept, missed the bus and was late for school. I was there when I missed a deadline, then missed another one, failed a class and had to re-invent my study plan. I was there when I dumped my boyfriend. I was there when everything went to hell and I thought I was going mad. If I am completely honest with myself, I have to admit that I was the mastermind behind all of these.

Perhaps you think that this sounds like a rather merciless revelation, and you're right. I agree. Life is merciless. Oscar Wilde said that each man kills the thing he loves, and I think this might be at least part of what he meant. We are frightfully good at ruining our own lives; in fact, it sometimes seems like we can't help but. But fear not! I also believe that the reverse is true: I am the best thing that has ever happened to me. When other people don't understand me, I can count on myself to get me, crystal clear. At least one person will always laugh at my jokes. When I'm feeling lonely, all I need to do is find a mirror to see a friendly face. When I'm scared, there will always be someone to hold my hand. Well, one of my hands, anyway. If you are friends with yourself, I think there's ultimately very little in life that can really hurt you.

Do you understand what I'm getting at? If you are both your own worst enemy and your own strongest ally, it means that you'll always be one step ahead of the game. For example, coping strategies. When the going gets tough, what do the tough do? But many people instead have a coping strategy of running. They're having trouble at work, so they quit; trouble at school, they skive off. Trouble at home, they pack their bags and sneak out when their spouse is not at home. I know this because I've done it, in one form or another. More often than not, they run into the same problems in their next working place, their next school and their next relationship, because while the environment may be different, they aren't. They're still them, and as such, likely to wreak havoc wherever they go.

But the good news is that if you know it, you can fight it. You can stay and work out the problems without wasting time and energy in running away.

Another example might be happiness — intrinsic happiness that has nothing to do with your environment or circumstances. One of my favourite poems, unsurprisingly called Happiness!, by the Finnish author J. H. Erkko, could be paraphrased as follows:

Happiness cannot be attained by seeking it, but simply by living.
Happiness does not come from outside, it rises from your chest — or if not, you must awaken it.
It hears the language of the conscience, and rises.

I interpret this to mean that contentedness in life has nothing to do with the props. The material things, definitely not — but even things like family and friends. Don't get me wrong. I do think one needs other people, to love and be loved in return; one needs a home and a set of goals and hopes for the future, and so on and so forth. But beneath it all, the very source of satisfaction and joy is somewhere deep inside you. Everyone is born with the innate ability to be happy. It's ingenious, really. It might even be why the history of the human race, as a whole, has been such a success story.

So this is the revelation that hit me. I by no means claim to have implemented it in my own life, oh no. But I'm confident that being aware of it is already half the work. I suppose most people go through life never realising why they keep running into the same problems and always being on the lookout for someone or something to come into their life and make them happy. So I hope I've saved myself and maybe even some of you some trouble! Know thyself and you'll know thine enemy — and keep them close, too.

I also realise that all of this sounds pretty egotistic: as if I was the centre of my life. But isn't this so? After all, whether you'll marry or not, whether you'll have children or not, you'll be the one you'll spend the rest of your life with in any case. So you might as well take a good look at yourself and see both all the beauty and all the filth, jumbled together inside your head, and then perhaps take some pre-emptive measures. Decide you're not going to run. Decide you're going to be happy no matter what. I will try, too.

Thank you.