Promoting health through happiness is an interesting pursuit. The poet Conrad Ferdinand Meyer thought deeply about this subject and concluded that a heavy heart is not cured by unrestrained hilarity but responds very quickly to even a little happiness. Was he really right? Can life’s problems be sorted out by just a little happiness, even though our everyday demands, worries and sufferings continuously erode our energies?
Imagine a beautiful peach tree espaliered against the wall of your house. Each spring it blossoms anew and a few months later it brings forth delicious fruit. Why should we think it could be otherwise? Yet suddenly the unexpected happens. The peach tree flowers as usual, but just as the flowers open they fall to the ground. The bark of the tree dries up and the tree dies. What has happened? The tree was the pride of the household; its healthy growth, its beautiful blossoms and delicious fruit were the talk of the neighbourhood. How could this tree die so quickly and unexpectedly? What malicious enemy could have attacked it? You ask yourself all these questions but you can only find the answers by digging up the tree. It is then that you discover the cause: field mice have eaten the roots and so killed the beautiful tree.
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