This morning, I went to a public place in this town to attend an offline meeting about autism. I arrived there, and found they had already been waiting for me (though my arrival wasn't too late). We shared how each one's daily life was, and also new members started talking about themselves. As usual, this meeting time has been very pleasant and also valuable for me.
There, a female friend of mine (the main leader of our group) asked me when I had had to endure the hardest era in my life. I remembered when it could be, and found that it must have been in my 30s, when I had belonged to the previous section in my company. Other members in there could follow the chief/manager's orders, but I could never do that. Therefore, finally, I started thinking about why I had been born in this world as this very "useless" guy.
What could I do if I were in that period with this knowledge, and this personality? If in that era, I had been connected with my job coach? Then, we could have tried to share what autism could be, and also tried to communicate to the company (and also, to myself) with plainer and clearer words. However, at that moment even I had not learned what autism could be well enough to explain to others (not only to the company, but to my parents). Yes, an old tale... and we started learning a lot about autism to understand ourselves, and even what the true meaning/definition of happiness could be.
However, don't misunderstand me as I have gotten mad with my company (my boss and my co-workers). You would think this strange, but even only 20 years ago the era was not "ripe" enough for us to understand what the concept/idea of autism was. Little by little, the "Asperger Syndrome" started changing its name to "Autism Spectrum Disorder", which means that this sort of brain character started to be known as a possible kind of them. In a way, the citizenship of autism has started to be accepted. Now, almost everywhere you can see autism.
Now, I can tell what is the core of the concept of happiness. That's for me to be myself, not pretending to anyone else's life so hardly enough.
