What Makes You Happy?

Hiking the Machu Pichhu Mountain

It was an odd question from somebody you had just met – and over the telephone nevertheless (compliments of COVID-19). “Do you know what makes you happy?”

A good question which needs some pondering. Not for Hadi Hajjar’90. He knows what makes him happy. He had known it since adolescence: traveling the world, meeting different people, and learning about different cultures, religions, and tasting different food. Or better put, experiencing the world.

Only six years into his adventure, Hajjar has been to 82 countries with a minimum of five stops in each nation and a maximum of 55 stops in countries like the US. His adventures took him to North and South America, North and South East Asia, Western Europe, North Africa, India, and the Middle East. He even made it to Antarctica in the South Pole and to the exotic Saint Martin Island embedded between the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. But these visits are not average in-and-out tourist jaunts but actual residencies among the countries’ natives.

He wanted to see it all, the good and the bad. Among his destinations were Ushuaia in Argentina (the southernmost tip of South America, nicknamed the ‘End of the World’), the Middle of the World City in Quito Ecuador, Cusco the capital of the Inca Empire, Machu Picchu in Peru, the lost city in Colombia, the Vietnamese

war resistance tunnels and the Americans jails in Saigon, the Phnom Pen world hidden massacre site, the Punta Tombo National Reserve – home for a vast colony of Magellanic penguins, the Everglades (the biggest reserve for alligators), Key West in Florida, the Bahamas Island, the Huston Rockets Museum, Gardens by the Bay in Singapore, the Dead Sea in Jordan (the lowest point on earth), five Universal Studios across the globe, famous opera houses and wineries.

Seeing it all included participating in the color festival in the India Golden Triangle “The Happy Holly,” participating in most of the 2020 Rio de Janeiro Carnival blocos

( groups of individuals who plan street parties during the Carnival), swimming and playing with Sea Lions in Puerto Madryn in Argentina, climbing to the top of Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador - the point on earth closest to the moon (1.5 miles closer than Everest), sailing in the Beagle Canal, hiking on the iconic Mount Fuji in Tokyo, and mingling in the high crime poverty-stricken favela neighborhoods in Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

He even managed to pick up a new snow sport, which is apparently the rage in Finland and South Korea: snow skating. Not only did he pick it up, but he managed to participate in the world snow skate competition in Pyeongchang Olympic Arena in South Korea against professional men half his age. So impressed were organizers that he has been invited to join other snow skating competitions in Germany, China, and Canada as a part of the different world completion.

Along the way, as he picked up the different nuances of various cultures, he became a Lebanese social writer - basically pointing out the flaws in Lebanese society, earning him both raving and caustic comments. Usually, after a few weeks, months, or even a year, he moves on to the next destination. The main frustration so far has been obtaining and organizing visas that fit into his tour sequence. That is until COVID-19 hit. He was in South America at the time and about to embark on a new journey when the disease reared its ugly head. Hajjar managed to make it back to Beirut a day before the airport closed. Unfortunately, his luggage did not.

It was a deviation from the ‘Plan.’ A setback. But setbacks can be readjusted and readapted. The Plan must continue. The world beckons. “I will finish the world and move to the moon,” he thought, repeating to himself his favorite motto. Nothing will stop him from continuing his lifetime project.

And so he is currently recapitalizing his resources in a plummeting Lebanese economy to finance future trips in a world which has suddenly changed.

There is little choice but to wait out COVID-19. Patience has become his best virtue. And yet, there was a time when Hajjar was a well known rumbustious student at IC. Always in trouble in some way or another. He couldn’t seem to control his actions. And then one day, he figured it out. He yearned for freedom. He ached to be on his own, take responsibility for his own choices, make his own decisions and his own mistakes.

He was 14 at the time. But that discovery would pave his future. And so, while the battles raged around him during the Lebanese civil war, he was meticulously drawing up his ‘Plan.’ A plan which would take him to all corners of the world. A plan which spelled out freedom.

Patience was key. He needed to complete his education and get a successful business going first. The ‘Plan’ was detailed. Excruciatingly detailed. No wife. No kids. Be unconventional. Work hard, save hard, and retire at 38. Except that he retired at 43. Close enough. The Plan allows for deviations. But sometimes, life gets in the way.

The COVID-19 lockdown is an antithesis to his freedom. But the first plane that leaves the airport – he will be on it. He had found his happiness and was not about to let it go.

“Do you know what makes you happy?” he asked again. “Find it and then work for it. But I will tell you this: Whoever did not experience freedom is not alive.”

Ubud

Rio Carnival