This book is narrated from the point of view of a caged who shares her heartwarming journey towards happiness in a confined position in life. It is a love letter to her human owner Ananda that turns out to be Eve at the end of the story. That means that the urgency of the bird becoming happier becomes a bigger urgency of creating happiness for the human race. A happy bird is already great, but a happy human can create real paradise on Earth. If Adam and Eve wouldn’t start a happiness revolution no one will.
The bird, Romy thinks the cage door will never open. One day just like magic Eve gives the key to fly free. As she unlocks the door she notices that the cage door was open all along. She just never tried to open the door and just assumed it was closed.
The book emphasizes that happiness is a choice, a journey of embracing serenity, clarity, and the beauty of being present.
This book is narrated from the point of view of a caged who shares her heartwarming journey towards happiness in a confined position in life. It is a love letter to her human owner Ananda that turns out to be Eve at the end of the story. That means that the urgency of the bird becoming happier becomes a bigger urgency of creating happiness for the human race. A happy bird is already great, but a happy human can create real paradise on Earth. If Adam and Eve wouldn’t start a happiness revolution no one will.
The bird, Romy thinks the cage door will never open. One day just like magic Eve gives the key to fly free. As she unlocks the door she notices that the cage door was open all along. She just never tried to open the door and just assumed it was closed.
The book emphasizes that happiness is a choice, a journey of embracing serenity, clarity, and the beauty of being present.
1. Happy People Seriously Ask Themselves: Am I Happy?
Dear Ananda,
Paradise exists. It is real, and I’ve always believed it. I’m glad you’re finally taking the time to read about my journey towards happiness. You’ve just picked up my happiness manual. Sorry, I was watching you in your cage the whole time, and it truly seems you’re not on a journey to happiness. So that is why I chose to write you this letter—it's the simplest way to share my thoughts and simple ideas about this thing called ‘happiness.’
Nowadays, not many people believe in the old tale of Paradise in the Bible. Most people think that Earth is all that exists. But I've always believed in Paradise, even if it’s only because it’s a beautiful story that offers hope—that all the effort we put into living doesn’t just dissolve into nothingness; it means we can always optimise anything and make it better. And boy, I did have to optimise my happiness levels and work on making myself happier.
The truth is, anyone can recreate Paradise here on Earth. We may not be able to summon it with a simple "Shazam!" like in stories, but we can create it in our minds. And once our brains believe it, the rest of our cells follow. I know it sounds so unbelievable, but I’ve found the loophole back to Paradise. That was why I wrote you this letter. I didn’t know how else to reach you.
Talking about Paradise might sound strange coming from a caged bird, but I’m really excited to share what I’ve discovered. I’ll show you how to stay happy— once your basic needs are met, everything else doesn’t matter as much. I must say I’m really sorry to interrupt your busy life with this little letter about love and life, but I hope it’s worth your time.As always, Ananda, I know you have a lot on your plate.
Allow me to introduce myself. Yes, it’s me, your former caged bird. I say ‘former’ because before, I did feel caged, but now, I feel free. If you look at the cage now, I’m still sitting in it, but I now see it more as a second home—a place to retreat and relax. I came back to the cage on free will to spread happiness to you and anyone reading this. If I had flown away, it would have been quite selfish of me, right? And my story of finding happiness would have been forgotten by everyone, and my story wouldn‘t have been told. Is the story of finding happiness not more important than going on holidays?
But first, let me introduce myself, my name is Romy. You named me Tweetie, but I never quite connected with that name. It sounded like a name from the cartoon, and I didn’t even take it seriously when you called me Tweetie. So, who would have thought that I, Romy, would ever write you a letter about the nicest thing on Earth: happiness? Who knew I’d have to become intelligent to help free you? To be honest, I was waiting for you to guide me with a written manual about life. I waited and waited but nothing happened. You were always busy with your daily routines, like a busy bee. So, my question was, aren’t you the most intelligent species on Earth?
Well, if I had waited for you to free me, I’d still be depressed in my cage. The urgency of my situation made me decide rapidly. From one day to the other, I had enough of small talk about my feathers and the weather. I really must admit, I had expected a happy manual from you in my cage. I waited every morning, and now here we are—the roles reversed and it’s now the other way around. I finally had to write you this manual. I didn’t want to die without giving you at least the chance to reach the highest level of loving what is. Furthermore, I saw you all day, just like you saw me and I thought you had imaginary cage bars around you, which might even be worse than my situation. This is my gift to you, my legacy.
This is more than just a letter—consider it a happiness manual. I decided to write down my wisdom for future generations and you because I saw you struggling, just like I once did. I wanted you to be as free as I am. It may sound strange, but even a caged bird can find inner freedom. Unknowingly to you, I had already discovered my inner peace paired with happiness. When I looked out of the cage, I wasn’t too sure if you were happy. I watched you and concluded that an unhappy human can even be quite dangerous.
If I was unhappy, no big deal. Who would care about a little caged bird being depressed? But an unhappy human can act in ways that make others unhappy too. When humans switch off their emotions or try to hide them, then they’re very close to becoming robots. And robots probably don’t care about their own happiness or anyone else. So, to avoid making mistakes and becoming a robot, I have to make you interested in a strategy that will make you feel better than you are right now.
Why not make this journey a happy one? If you have the gift of being happy whenever you want or the ability to stay happy whenever you want, why not use it? Ananda, did you know you can create happiness? If I can do it, you can too.
At first, my happiness journey was a selfish one. I wanted to explore what life would be like with constant happiness in this miserable situation, then just find the keys, open the cage door and fly away. I didn’t even think about you. But then this selfish journey turns all by itself into a very generous one. Once you understand it, you want to sing your wisdom from the roof of every house. And since I can’t sing on every rooftop, anyone reading this should make their own home a happy place and spread that happiness to others so that they too, can sing it from one rooftop to another.
That’s how we spread the happy vibe. Just imagine if Adam and Eve had celebrated happiness from the beginning and made it the most important thing in our culture. Would history have turned out the way it did? My humble journey to happiness turned out to be a huge experiment driven by curiosity. I started waking up differently with intention. I ate differently and just enjoyed each day. I stopped complaining. Not only that, but I’m living proof that you can break free from your own cage.
Don’t worry, happiness isn’t harmful. Don’t be afraid of it. Just aim for it. Life will still challenge you and try to make you unhappy at times, but if your commitment to happiness is stronger than your stress, you’ll achieve the greatest luxury in life: a constant sense of well-being. Don’t you think this is the alchemy of life? Once you reach this well-being, it will never leave you. It becomes your own personal paradise, a place within yourself that you can retreat to anytime. It’s a place that will embrace you when you need comfort, heal you when you feel sick, and only disappear if you ignore it.
Life isn’t always out to get you. Most of the time, you’re more secure in your body and surroundings than you think. So, let’s take this journey together. I think now is the time to free you from your cage. My wish for you and everyone is that you all wake up—truly wake up—to the fact that you’re alive and that every cell in your body is curious about the miracles that each day can bring. When you wake up every morning, you’ll see yourself as the first being searching for happiness. Maybe you literally are the first one in your family searching for happiness.
I was once sceptical, just like you, that Paradise even existed. That I couldn’t keep an inner smile alive all day. Thinking it to be too exhausting. I thought the Divine didn’t care about me since I was caged, like me by caging me in, but then, I realised that this urge I developed by myself to seek constant happiness—and discovering that it was possible—was actually a sign of His love. He must have left a few doors open in my brain to think about this whole topic in a new way, and I’m grateful for that. Maybe He does like me after all. He blessed my little bird brain with the capacity of human logic and the ability to think like a human. Not every bird gets to experience human logic that close, or even be around humans so closely. We birds instinctively all hold our distance from you unhappy creatures. Some birds have seen humans really happy, but usually only after a comedy show, a party or when on vacation. How often do you smile in a day, Ananda? All I want is for you to just get really serious about your own feelings.
I, for my part, had noticed I was always juggling between being okay and feeling bad, but I wasn't mastering the art of feeling amazing. I didn’t understand why. Was it because I was caged or did I just not have the skill? I kept asking myself why I was always thinking about something else as feeling amazing. To feel amazing, all I had to do was picture the best image I could. Doesn’t sound too hard to do, right? It’s just an image of my own personal paradise. If we all think of paradise, probably, it contains birds chirping, hot waterfalls overflowing, and everyone dancing in bliss. What’s wrong with that? The music is always perfect and fruits are hanging from the trees. Then, one day, thinking about paradise became my favourite thing to do on Earth. Imagine everyone building up their own paradise from the beginning of life and really residing in it within their heart. I bet we’d probably nearly re-create the real paradise and you wouldn’t need this letter from me.
Initially, I wanted to be straightforward and just ask you for the keys to my cage so I could fly away. But what good would that have done if I hadn't pushed myself through this situation and learned about happiness? I had to switch up the whole strategy of being caged. All I had to do was take the question of how I was really feeling more seriously.
On a scale from zero to ten, how did I really feel? Years ago, I would have rated myself a solid six out of ten. Now, my daily standard is a ten—a constant, unchangeable 10. I bet everyone around you would insist it’s impossible to always be happy. Everyone wants proof before they believe. But all I did was believe, and then I had my proof. This need for proof can make life miserable if you let it. What proof do you really need? You just need to give yourself permission to live better. You already have all the tools needed to create whatever you want. Imagination became my most important tool. I didn't need scientific proof of Paradise. All I had to do was figure out how to open the door to my inner kingdom just the way I liked it. My job in this life was to create the best life I possibly could. And seeing this picture of me swimming in hot water pools, wearing nice long dresses, and eating great was the only proof I needed. I don't wait around for evidence from authorities or others. The only proof required is that this story exists. There’s always some truth to any story. But every story told has its good and bad sides.
Think about it: the story of Paradise includes both Heaven and Hell. But there’s an even more dangerous place—dwelling in neither extreme, just muddling through the in-between land for a hundred years and calling that a life. I even believe that Earth was just invented on purpose to be neither upstairs nor downstairs. I find the story of Paradise so enchanting and inspiring because it gives me hope that there's a place better than the one we live in. And this one on Earth can really be great. Why fight it, complain about it, or deny its existence? Why ignore such a wonderful possibility? I understand wanting to ignore Hell, but why ignore Paradise? We all know we have to deal with the cards we’re given here anyway. Here, we have a bit of Hell and a bit of Heaven. If you really dig deep, Ananda, don’t you believe there’s a problem-free place somewhere? Somewhere even more beautiful than here? I feel like I’m an ambassador of that place, trying to sell tickets here on Earth to get back to it.
For humans, it must be embarrassing to have been kicked out of Paradise; that likely brings a deep sense of frustration and punishment. But what’s the use of silently suffering and regretting it when we can avoid it by focusing on the most beautiful image we can imagine and re-entering the magic just by thought?
As your caged bird, I had to admit that I wasn't fully satisfied with my level of happiness in that cage and with my life expectations. I wasn't living in hellish conditions, but I wasn't experiencing the best quality of life either, and at first, I didn't understand why. I was blaming you all the time. If you hadn't caged me, I would be soaring high and free. But would I have been happy? I clung to anything that could make life easier in this cage. Anything was appreciated.
But still, if I wasn't living in Paradise or Hell, where was I? I realised I was stuck somewhere in between, in a comfortable place on a swing, not taking responsibility for the love I sent to my own heart. I was on a swing and you were on a couch. It’s pretty much the same. My heart actually functioned perfectly on standby. But did I want to merely survive, or did I want to thrive? Did I want to be free or stressed? When would I get serious about happiness in my life? When I’m dying?
I clung to anything that could make my life easier in this cage. Anything was appreciated. The days were dull, and it would have helped if the first family on Earth had left a little notebook with guidance on how to handle happiness in daily life—a happiness manual. Then everyone would be in a better situation. If you are like me, a bird born into a cage without privacy and, to be honest, not very pretty, you’d understand the urgency of my search.
Thank God, life always offers solutions to every problem. I wasn’t waiting for anyone to knock on my door anymore to make me happy. I didn’t even wait around for you, Ananda, to entertain me— you seemed to have more important things to do. Maybe it was my turn to show you the way to freedom? It was time for both of us to take the responsibility of this task at hand. It took me ages to realise that my life quality depended solely on me and that I was the only one who could save myself from the miseries of life.
I really do have to thank you, Ananda. Thank you for imprisoning me and freeing me simultaneously. By caging me, you gave me the chance to think deeply about life if it weren’t for you, my life would have been about searching for worms without any real meaning. Now it’s time for me to return the favour. Perhaps we’re the first of its kind to do this work. Who knows? But let’s make it urgent because it is. I mean, why would you always want to be happy from today onward? In my case, I wanted to be happy and healthy because I knew if I wasn’t, you might replace me or throw me away. Plus, I didn't want to see a doctor. Also, being officially imprisoned didn’t help happiness rise in the morning. I knew every bit of suffering could lead to illness and a shorter life. Why wouldn't I want to be happy? It’s pleasurable, after all. And I can’t think of one negative side effect of being happy. Can you? So tell me, Ananda, why would you want to be happy most of the time?
I have noticed that humans are interested in so many things—foreign countries, food, clothes, image, status, history, careers, architecture, comfort, cars, saving and mating—that there's little room left for happiness. I understand that. But why is the most important thing on Earth just left to chance? I guess integrating this wisdom into your lives and upgrading your internal software voluntarily is a giant leap in every family. It takes time and discipline. I noticed that happiness happens by free will. But what if it were forced as an integral part of our culture? What if we had to get a licence for the topic of happiness, just like a driving licence? An exam with a photo, a signature, and an ID to show off our knowledge?
Usually, you only do things you’re forced to do, and no one forces you to smile at work or on the street. No one forces you to be happy. It’s up to you. It’s your own business. For a while, I believed happiness was only for the rich, who measured their success through external achievements, or the yogis, who retreated from the world and measured success through inner peace, but that’s not true.
You don't even have to get up from your chair to smile into your heart. Happiness is a discipline and discipline needs your focus. Focus on the story of what paradise could look like. Is that so hard? As often as I could, I would focus on Paradise because, look around—not many things here make sense anyway. No one knows why they’re doing what they’re doing. Even explanations of how things work didn’t satisfy me. Just because I know the sun is a planet on fire doesn’t help me enjoy the rays of the sun. And as we all know, not everything is fair here either. We’re spinning on a rock in the middle of an incomprehensibly vast and expanding universe. And on this rock, you humans are living with millions of other species. Everyone is eating everyone.
So, what really makes you different from all the other species? Don't you protect, mate, eat, and sleep like the rest? At first glance, it’s nothing special. But your unique feature is that you can be spiritual, and you can plan your moves in life before even making them. You can look inward and beyond any border. If you really want to, you can get a sense of what’s going on behind the curtains. You can be happy in the blink of an eye, and you have the ability to store your food. You have all the tools at hand for a happy life, right? It feels like a vast experiment we’re all part of together. Is it an experiment of how much we can suffer or how happy we can roam life? I do believe whoever invented all of this, with all these energies, gave us the opportunity to decide, with all of our heart, which direction we want to go.
Once we’re born here, it’s all up to us. Happiness is up to us. If we prove our ability to be happy, we’ve done a great job here. We should call this place ‘Happy place’. Of course, it’s a bit of a joke that we didn’t get happiness served on a silver spoon from birth until death, but that’s just the way it is. While we’re already here, we can hold our heads high, walk and dance with grace to answer one question at the end of our journey: How did you find this paradise given to you every day? I don’t know about you, but there was a time when I could have certainly used a boost to the 'fun button' in this challenging environment.
Ananda, your fun button must have been turned off, too. I watched your daily accomplishments—the food you harvested from the garden, the clothes you made, your walks in the fantastic garden, swimming in the warm river, and retreating to your cosy house. Still, I asked myself, is she happy? And more selfishly, I had to ask myself if I was happy. I didn’t even know if the person who created this universe was happy.
For me, every day was the same. I woke up and waited for emotions to happen by chance. It was a good day if I wasn't too happy or sad. I felt like a ping pong ball, bouncing back and forth with no real foundation of happiness. Any news would quickly affect my mood. If you told me a bird died in the garden, I would be shocked; if you scratched my back, I would be happy; if you humans were loud and angry, I would be confused; if you neglected me, I would be sad; if the sun didn't shine, I would be furious; if I saw birds flying in the garden, I would be envious. But happy moments rarely knocked on my door, even though everything around me was beautiful. The golden glitter of the cage bars, the fresh food, the clean air, the view out of my window, and having a human as a caretaker—all of it was good. So, what was I waiting for to allow happiness to enter the cage? Was I waiting for you to entertain me, for the weather to always be perfect, or for the cage door to open? What illusory carrot was I dangling in front of my own nose? I mean, what imaginary goal was I chasing? Couldn’t I become happy anywhere, at any time?
One day, I discovered a miracle tablet in front of the cage—an unexpected revelation. It had all the answers for me—a wealth of wisdom and the history of Earth. It had all the answers to everything. A computer was always at my disposal, so with some effort, I could find the solution to my problem and situation. There’s always a strategy for everything, and not looking for the answers is just ignorance. If you’re an actor and want to feel sad, guess what? There’s a strategy. All you have to do is think of something tragic. If you want to be angry, you think of something in the past that hurt you. If you want to suffer, believe that life itself is hard. But if you want to be happy, create an image of your paradise and don't let anyone or any thought take you out of it. You become the guard of your thoughts. So come along with me on this and let’s start sowing seeds in your own Garden of Eden if you let me. I won‘t waste your time.
This lucky bird is happier than you by Rose V. Waters is a “happiness manual” on achieving supreme happiness regardless of your circumstances. It’s written as a letter by Romy, a wise, caged pet bird to her owner and mistress, Ananda (Note: 'Ananda' is a feminine Sanskrit name meaning “happiness,” suggesting Ananda was created for ultimate bliss.) Despite her confinement, Romy discovers the secret to happiness through reflection and introspection, transforming her negative circumstances into positive ones by making suitable lifestyle changes. She realizes that both she and Ananda are living in cages: Romy’s cage comprises metal bars, while Ananda’s is made up of societal limitations—equally actual bars, although invisible! Maybe, she thought, “If everyone lives in a cage of some kind, why worry unduly about mine?” She wanted to be happy, so she lost no time creating her paradise, even in confinement.
This book employs a ‘reverse chronology’ narrative style, leading to a powerful twist at the end: it reveals Ananda’s true identity as Eve (yes, the Eve, our great ancestor and the first woman ever created!). Romy discovers this when she overhears Adam (who has remained hidden until now) calling her by that name. Suddenly, the wheels of history spin backward at lightning speed, and Romy realizes they were in the Garden of Eden all along! This twist will spark a bolt of excitement, prompting readers to question the true meaning of the book. Why was the Sanskrit name Ananda chosen for Eve instead of a Western name like Evelyn? If they aren’t in the Garden of Eden, are they witnessing the dawn of creation on a new planet? After you recover from the shock, you will be flooded with such questions, but rest assured, everything will fall into place when you revisit the book with this newfound perspective!
Overall, this book is an enjoyable read. If the initial chapters feel dull or a bit rambling, the unique backward structure will compensate for it. It has a beautiful cover, though I believe it could be further enhanced. In my opinion, the page layout/style too needs to change as the present paragraph spacing feels too tight, affecting the pleasure of reading. The book isn’t free of errors, but the ones I ran across were all minor. All things considered then, I rate it 4 stars.
Happiness is a theme of universal relevance and importance. Hence, English speakers anywhere in the world—native speakers (as in the USA, UK, Australia, etc.) followed by non-native speakers would form its audience. However, since readers need to have attained a level of maturity to enjoy it, I recommend it to those 35 and above. An open mind, willing to hear and accept wise counsel, is also essential. Therefore, if you hold very strong, rigid opinions, please avoid reading this book!