John Lennon said: "When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy'. They told me I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life."
I really believe that happiness is the key of life. I've been asked so many times during interviews, when did I decide that I wanted to be a singer. I came to realize that I actually have never made that decision.
The only thing I actually always wanted to be was "happy." It happens that part of my being happy is singing and performing.
What is happiness? For some is fame, for some is love, for some is money, for some is health. So, is happiness something we don't have? How can we be happy if to be happy we need something we don't have? There will always be something we don't have.
I'm sure we all know people that have a lot and are always complaining about something, and some others that have almost nothing and are happy with their lives.
I came to realize that they are happy not because they have all they want want, but because they are passionate about something and that puts their mind in that state of happiness. They are happy because they do something they love. Because they are working on something they believe in.
They are willing to take risks to pursue something. They don't mind to sacrifice something to get where they want to go and to do what they want to do. They are fearless. I've seen a lot of starving artists and dreamers being so happy in what you can call "misery" if measured in wealth.
Happy people often don't settle for a comfortable life. They are going for an exceptional life. They carve their own path and don't follow the crowed. They follow their heart. They follow their passion. They get highly criticized and widely loved with the same magnitude. Like for instance great humanitarian Mother Theresa she was loved and criticized during her life and after her death. She was a believer and she was happy because she was following her believes. And she was happy for that, so that she could even forget about her physical pain.
Happiness is something we have to find within ourselves . Happiness should be the journey toward something we want not the end destination of that journey. I have big dreams and there are so many things I want to have and achieve. I'm happy because I'm working on having and achieving what I love.
One of my idols is French singer Edith Piaff. She used to say "For me singing is a way of escaping. I'm not longer on earth."
That is essentially what music is for me. When I'm on a stage singing I'm in a perfect world, in a perfect state of mind. I'm basically happy.
I can be sick, miserable and sad, but while I'm singing I'm healthy and happy.
It is incredible how we can forget about our pain and sorrows when we concentrate and we are doing something we love, something important that we really want to do. Even the most miserable day can be a happy day. I'm sure it has happen to you too.
A few years ago my husband was producing in The Netherlands a series of performances of The Marijnsky Ballet, one of the world's leading ballet companies, known as "The Kirov Ballet".
I remember watching them on stage on opening night. It was incredible: those dancers were so gracious and everything looked like it was easy, natural. Heavenly beautiful. Perfect.
The day after I was able to go back stage and see the warming up and the show from there. Those beautiful ballerinas had elastic bands and patches all over their body. I saw them taking out those pretty ballerina and their feet were bleeding. But, somehow as soon as they were stepping into that stage, the smile was on their faces and they were making everything look effortlessly and so beautiful. When they were leaving the stage for a change of costume some of them were limping. But they seemed not to care about it. They needed to go back on stage and so they did.
After the show you could see those bleeding feet coming out of the ballerina shoes and those elastic bands and patches being put back in. But their faces were radiant. They had just danced and the audience loved it. They were really happy.
With that kind of injures most of us would have been crying in bed. Instead they were smiling and having a celebration.
I knew that feeling so well. Just like for those ballerinas also for me nothing has ever come easy and almost never without pain or sacrifices. I've always been moved by passion and kept a positive attitude, moved forward without fear. Happy while I'm living my life.
Happy even if the most tough and miserable moments of my life. Why? Because I just know that there is no perfection also not in happiness and the pursuit of it involved risks, pain, rejections, sweet and tears. And so I look around everyday and I find reasons to be happy in so many little things.
I'm happy not because my life is perfect but because I have the opportunity to do what I love so much.
To be happy is after all what we all want. More money, more success, more love or more fame. Let's go for it and be fearless....we can loose money, fame, love but not happiness!!
And talking about happiness my television special From Venice With Love will air in December on PBS around the USA. Check your PBS local listing or my website www.giadavalenti.com for the latest updates.