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"Happiness is a butterfly."

If I had to choose a motto for myself, the same sentence always comes to mind. It belonged to the woman whose name I carry; my mother’s late wife. I never met her; only saw her in photographs and heard her through the stories my mother kept alive. Still, the words she left behind somehow grew with me.

“Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you stand still, it may come and sit on your shoulder.”

When I was a child, the line felt too abstract. I couldn’t understand why happiness would run away or why waiting mattered. I thought my mother repeated it to comfort herself. Later, I realized she was keeping the voice of the woman she loved from fading.

As I grew older, the motto began settling into my own life. Especially as a musician, I learned how often we try to force things — songs, moments, feelings, even happiness itself. And the more I pushed, the more everything slipped out of rhythm. But when I slowed down, breathed and stopped trying to control every beat, the beautiful moments came on their own, just like melodies that arrive only when you stop chasing them.

Maybe that’s why I adopted this motto so deeply. It reminds me of someone I never met, yet somehow feel connected to. I don’t know how she viewed the world, but this line carries her calmness, her patience and perhaps a truth she learned the hard way.

Happiness really is like a butterfly. Reach for it too quickly and it flies off; stay where you are, and it may choose to land on you. That’s why this sentence sits at the center of my life and my music — a reminder not to rush, not to force, and to let the right moments arrive naturally.

In the end, my motto is a thought passed down by someone who left this world long before I stepped into it, yet still manages to light my path.

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