Happiness - The State Of Being Happy
On the tenth of Jan 2016, after having received heaps of wishes and goodwill from the world at large, I was thinking of how can I give back to the world what I have learned in life or what my experiences are. This is when I conceived the idea of Life 101. I felt that I am going to pick up one topic every time and talk about my experiences of what I feel, and how people can actually benefit and transform their lives the way I transformed mine. So starting with today its Life 101 series and we start with happiness, which is the most important in our life. Happiness, is the state of being happy.
The pursuit of happiness is a centuries-old sport. Books have been written about it, songs have been sung and whole religions have been based on attaining this one elusive state. The operative word here is, mind you, "elusive". It's a mistake to view happiness as a goal, rather you have to view your happiness as a by-product, much like fame, glory, riches, and love. From many years of studying human beings and their afflictions, I can confidently say that there is not one, but many happiness-producing paths. In my life, I realize that it's not only one way that you can be happy, there are so many ways that you can keep yourself happy. Now which one is yours is specific to your particular circumstances. So we can't say that what makes me happy can make everyone happy. You have to find your own path. This is why today I will not speak of how to make you happy, but rather with my experiences, I want to inspire you to find your own way.
Let's start with one very basic quote from the Mahabharata. It says, "He who, being one thing, represents himself as another thing to others is like a thief or robber to his own self." If you actually see, it stresses us out when we want to say something but we end up saying something else. We want to be one thing, but we represent ourselves being something else. It does create a lot of stress in our life. So, what are the basic things that you need to do is to learn to accept yourself. Spend some time getting to know yourself. Accepting who you are and what you have right now and by finding yourself, I don't mean in the career counseling department or while having hallucinate drugs with the standing babas, wherever they are giving you drugs. You can't be drinking alcohol and saying that oh, this makes me happy or having a particular drug that induces that happiness. These are all short lived and physically they are debilitating to your body. I mean find time to quietly reflect every day for as long as it takes. Meditating, running, taking long walks, yoga, doing sports, knitting, painting, climbing, climbing a mountain, gardening, singing, dancing, screaming....whatever your avenue is, but keep it healthy. So accept yourself for what you are. This is your first step towards gaining happiness.
Then you come towards acknowledging the fact. Once you accepted yourself, the second step is acknowledgement and this helps for you to get into your current state of mind. If you are unhappy or sad or angry or disgusted all the time, then your emotions are trying to tell you something about your current state of affairs. Normally what happens is, people start saying oh, I'm angry or feeling sad. But you are not realizing that these emotions are actually trying to indicate something in your life. They're trying to send you messages and they're trying to tell you something about what is happening presently in your life. The worst thing you can do is to suppress or ignore these emotions. It's often a sign that you're moving or rather being dragged through life too fast and often against your own good sense or wishes. So you need to acknowledge this. Acknowledge also means address this, that why am I having these emotions in life.
Now what is the third step? It's last but not the least. It's becoming aware. Awareness. Awareness about yourself and the world that you are living in. Don't accept rules, values and models at face value. Explore them, question then and then find out what works for you and your loved ones. Be it your friends or family or community members. Be aware of the world you live in. How it affects you and how it can and how you affect the world. Make your own rules, values and models and make those values, rules and models, which are real and which can do good for you and once you have become the change, the world around you changes. Use this information that I have told you. It's an experienced information. I also accepted the way I was. I acknowledged my world. I became aware of the values, the models and I actually made my own path. Now you should also use this information that you have gained about yourself and take these above steps and trust your instincts to guide you with coming up with an understanding of what gives you happiness.
So to end for today, I'll leave you mulling over a quote from Einstein. He says, "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a persistent one." So don't get conditions. Don't say, I am conditioned by a thing. Break off from those traditions. Develop your own conditioning. Make your own reality. Even though it will be tough, but remember to keep it real and it won't be impossible. Be it simple things or long-term goals, you need to comment on yourself and maintain a diary. Maintain a diary whenever I am going to speak about a particular subject, I want you to write down how you feel about it and how you can change the circumstances for yourself on how you want your life to be. Make it simple. Keep your long-term goals. Make it real and write it down what makes you happy. Thank you.
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