Photographer Ludmila Ruzickova about happiness

Ludmila is a free spirit. She discovered traveling in 2010 and couldn’t stop since. She is talented photographer and her travel photos are easy to find on  on BigStock or Shutterstock. She is just 32 but already lived in Europe, USA, Canada and New Zeeland. Currently, you can meet her in Canada. Ludmila is very active person. Except photography, she used to study martial arts and is an active mountain climber. Ludmila writes her blog in Czech – you can see it on natura-linda.com.

See also Ludmila`s quiz answers

Happyence: According your quiz you were just little bit satisfied and not happy at all. Did you really feel this way in past or it is your feeling from today perspective?

Ludmila Ruzickova: It´s hard to say. I think both. Because if you are unhappy already from childhood and you don´t know a different state, frame of your mind, you cannot think that you are unhappy. But today I see that I was, lots of crying, unsatifcation, closed to inner world. I don´t know what was the reason when I was really small child but my parents told me that I was as baby crying and screaming a lot so our neighbors complained many times and they would hit by brush handle into the ceiling to enforce the quietness. And then in pre-puberty time I was really unhappy, feeling as outsider with my different feelings and facing the problems with my parents and their non-acceptance of myself.

Happyence: When did you realized absence of happiness and need to do something with it? What situation made/forced you realize?

Ludmila Ruzickova: The strongest realization of unhappiness came when I was about 13 years old. Before I was very quiet and polite girl with good marks at the school. My parents would not have any reason to complain about me. But they still did. That time I was at the school, real outsider. Good marks, quiet, shy. I don´t remember any certain situation for changing my mind. But one day I decided to change myself! To be more straight, brave, self-confident and enjoying the teenager time, parties, meeting new friends and so on. It was hard from beginning because it was just as veil for my inner emotion chaos and non-self-confidence. But I enjoyed it a lot and some moments I was really happy, but some really down. It was tough fight with myself, my parents as well.

Happyence: There is visible a huge contrast among past, current and future happiness in your life? What happened? How have you changed it?

Ludmila Ruzickova: I remember exactly that moment. I was in January 2015, in my last days in Costa Rica where I went to spend my one month of vacation after busy season working in restaurant in Canada. It was rainy day, but in Costa Rica still warm. Nothing else to do, just relax, thinking, searching some stuff at the internet. And then suddenly came to me some article about happiness from one of the many blogs on the internet. I started to read, thinking about my childhood and everything what happened to me in my life. I don´t know why it happened but I felt so open to higher power, something like the state of state of widespread consciousness how it is called in psychology. From that time I started to search for more and more spiritual things, listening show talks about it from different people at YouTube channel and sometimes reading some books. I don´t know if this happened to me because I turned 30 and it´s kind of year for everyone to think more about his/her life, or if it was more about my busy lifestyle focused on making money in Canada.

Happyence: You write traveling makes you happy and you also compare traveling to drugs. Isn’t it sometime really like a drug to you? I mean the state you do everything (work which you don’t like) just to get another drug dose (trip).

Ludmila Ruzickova: It´s wide known that once you start to travel, you want more, exactly as drug. I´m travelling for 8 years now and I have to say that I realized recently that it depends also on the style of your travelling. I really started to enjoy travelling as single-women backpacker. You have a lot of time to think about your life but you still meet many new nice people. I don´t see travelling now as a drug but more as adventure lifestyle, braking my comfort zone and pushing myself into my better “me” which would not happened in stereotypic, safe and kind of sterile conditions at home.

Happyence: You mentioned the feeling of unconformity with the society. Also, in your PWI index is your satisfaction with being a part of community the lowest one. Isn’t your traveling just kind of escape? Traveling can be compare to drugs here again.

Ludmila Ruzickova: I was never feeling as part of any community. Maybe because I had always more individualistic setting, loving to meet new people but I´ve never felt as one unit with them. So inside of me were always fighting two powers – a desire to belong somewhere but also to stay individualist which made me careful and kind of closed to others. I don´t like this statement that “travelling is escape”. You cannot escape from yourself so if you have some problems it goes with you where you are in the world. Maybe that´s the meaning why people say that travelling is escaping real life. But maybe sometimes people just need “vacation”, time for themselves to realize what they want and what not. Is that escape? No, it´s just time off for themselves, just wide society push the individualities to be still productive and fast in this consume world and they call this vacation, travelling or taking time for our self by “escape”. I´m all the time travelling now and I don´t feel as escaping. I feel actually more alive and living more fully my life than before.

Happyence: Traveling is great, and I have a great understanding for your wish to keep your free spirit and way of life. Have you been thinking about how to combine it with a partner or even kids (if you want some in future)? I know it is possible. I am wondering about your opinion and if it is the way, you would prefer in future.

Ludmila Ruzickova: I definitely agree that it´s possible. And I see and hear still about more and more people travelling as a family, even together with small children. And they love it! I thing that it´s another prejudice of our society – “poor children, they need structured, save condition for their development, firm rules” and so on. I think it´s not true. For children doesn´t matter where they are. For them is important to be with their loving parents to be happy. And during travelling is this condition satisfied more than when tired and nervous mother is at home with them and they see father just for a little while at the evening when he comes tired from his job to make money for the family. How they can be happy then?

Happyence: You don’t like a need of money to get the life you want. Would you agree with the statement: “To appreciate anything in your life, you must earn it first.” It has something to do with sacrifice, expectation and processes in human brain.

Ludmila Ruzickova: Well, for sure if you work for something hard you appreciate it more than if you just get it easily. But I thing that money should work for us not we for them. I feel that whole society is working for getting money now, to survive on this world, we are focused on it and we are losing real values of the life as is health, love and great relationships. Because on first place are money. Everything is subordinate to them. Then we don´t have a time to stop and enjoy our life, we don´t have a time to go to help our friends with something. Because time is money, right? I like money, I like to have money. But I don´t like to sacrifice my lifetime to make them.

Happyence: In quiz, you filled you don’t understand the meaning of your life much yet. Do you try to find out and how? 

Ludmila Ruzickova: I was really trying hard for past 2 years but it did not seemed to bring any closer result. I was actually getting more and more frustrated and depressed. I was reading lots of smart books, listening talk shows with successful people, I also went to Peru to try magic shamanic ayahuasca plant to find out my life purpose. But nothing made me really to find out so far. After two years of struggling I’m just going to get more relaxed about this, not pushing on myself too much. Some of the people started to see their sense of the life just when they´ve got old. You never know. I believe that everyone has different role on this world and the fulfilling of the role can come maybe just shortly before death.

Happyence: Do you think that exploring of the meaning of your life and moving towards it makes you happy? Can it be hidden in Confucius statement: “Do what you love, and you will not WORK anymore”?

Ludmila Ruzickova: I don´t think that searching for meaning of the life makes me happy. I guess I would be happier to know it already :) to know already what I should be doing to fulfill my life. But definitely makes me happy this way which I´m going right now in my life – the way of being aware that there is some higher meaning why we live. And the sentence from Confucius is connected with it. Everyone has different talents, different roles on this world which should be doing and that makes him/her happy. To drive it to a profession to make money of it in the same time, it´s from my point of view ideal statement.

Happyence: About your daily routine: Do you observe any difference in your happiness feeling when you miss some item of your list? How big impact have physical and psychical practices on your happiness?

Ludmila Ruzickova: I see very big different. Especially when I travel and my day doesn´t have any structure. Then it´s really important for me to do at least my morning yoga ritual. My mind will get calm down, all the thoughts becomes quiet and whole day it´s then happier. Sometimes I have a feeling that the thought are not ours that they are coming to our heads from surrounding around us, from different worlds. That´s also opinion of some old philosophical schools. I´ve never think about it but now I see that it could be true. Because where all these thoughts in our mind are coming from? I don´t create them, I don’t want them. I want to stay calm but they are still present.

Happyence: You seek inspiration about happy living in books? Could you recommend those you liked the most?

Ludmila Ruzickova: Nowadays I´m more listening talk shows at YouTube channels about self-development and life motivation. My favorites are Cesty k sobě, DušeK, Příznaky transformace. About life happiness I read usually random e-books which I find at the internet. However I remember that big impact on me had books from Louise Hay, especially her book “Love your life”, and then book “Dying to be me” from Anita Moorjani.

Happyence: If you want to say something at the end, this is the place. Thank you.

Ludmila Ruzickova: Thank you for the interview. I would like to say to everyone. Doesn´t matter how hard was your past. Time to live is right now, time to be happy is right now. It´s everything in your arms. From my travelling around the world I can say that there are lots of people who struggle with hard conditions, bad political situation, they are poor, but they are still happy! So if they can, everyone can! It´s just your decision to be happy or unhappy. Everything is just point of view. You just have to choose to be happy.