Hey Readers!

Long time no see😊

Of course, there had to be something to keep you waiting for and here it comes! But before that I just wanna make sure that you all have been keeping healthy, happy and high in spirits since my last post on How Real is Reality?

Before we move ahead, I just wanna ask you all a very simple question❓WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY? Did you take a sigh to think upon the answer and still thinking? Oh! Come on, it’s a question in the EVS book of class 1 students, why are you still thinking? My twin 5 year olds have a very lovely answers to this question. One says, When my father lifts me up in his arms, that makes me happy, the other one says when mamma doesn’t go to office, I feel really happy!

Friends, are you still thinking? Yes! This is all what today’s post is about…We all want to be happy, we all want to be contented but we are still thinking upon what makes us feel that. What I believe is nothing can make you happy unless you yourself are willing to be. As they say

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, I say, Happiness lies in the heart of the beholder!

The other day, it was raining heavily, while I was on way in my cherry red four wheeler to pick kids up from school, I saw these 4 little kids playing along roadside jumping in the puddles and having fun. They were getting near to the vehicles passing by, to enjoy the wheels splash water on them. I suddenly remembered my own childhood days when we used to go to school on a bicycle and how we used to express our extreme disappointment on the cars and bikes that splashed water on us while passing across on rainy days. Simple little things can make one happy and the other disappointed!

PERSPECTIVE! It’s all perspective! And perspective affects happiness when we find it somewhere outside. When I get a promotion, I’ll be happy or some might say When 👉he/she doesn’t get a promotion, I ll be happy! (Did you just think of a person in context?) While a mother is happy to see her own child flourish, she might not be as happy seeing the other’s! We try find happiness in the actions of others and the environment and that’s where the Happiness Index suffers. I am not talking about the Global Happiness Index where Finland has been toping for 5 consecutive year owing to the best of systems of living in the country. I am talking about the “Self Happiness Index”

Have you ever tried evaluating “how happy you are?” No! We actually find time to think about external influences that’ll make us happy someday but we less focus on realising what will make me happy now! The other day I called up a friend and in mid of the conversation, I asked her to give phone to her 4 year old for talking to her, she told me that her daughter is sitting in another room angry and sad! I asked her why? She told me that her daughter didn’t have breakfast that morning until 11 am(when I called up) because there was a power cut, I cross questioned her how does power cut stop her from having food, she said “TV nahin chal raha na”. 😂

Right from our early childhood, we are made sensitive towards external factors that keep making us happy once or sad the other times!. And we are rigid so much so that we want our conditions for this pseudo happiness fulfilled even at the cost of our own health, relations and mental peace.

In my opinion and experience until now, external factors are responsible for momentary happiness as the same do not last forever! I’d like to take you back to my posts Change is Constant and The Ultimate Truth in this context.

We all have heard the quote “True Happiness Lies within us!” A person who smiles and remains calm in situations untoward, is happier than a person who seeks laughter in the jokes of others. Nowhere is it mentioned laughter and smiles are symbols of Happiness. They say Laughter is a medicine! That means it’s a cure to the diseases called anger, short temper, impatience, overthinking and many more…

You might have heard from people around or in family talking regarding an X Y Z who has a lot of money, fame and power “Par wo khush nahi hai”(still unhappy). That’s where the truth lies. There’s no external superpower that can make you as happy as your own heart can! Money, fame and power are no measures! A poor hungry child might be happier than the child who was not having food since the TV was not working!

To be happy, we need to be at peace with ourselves. The contentment of the heart is greater fulfilment of a condition that makes one happy! I see people unhappy for reasons inexplicable. Actually, we try find benefits in all situations (mostly tangible) and when we do not get it, we tend to curse the situation without understanding the actual output we got out out of it. Say for eg. In a flight, if on request, the cabin crew is unable to change a person’s seat next to that of their friend, I have seen that throughout the flight they’ll grumble and roam on the aisle expressing their discontentment and disappointment over the same as if it was a birthright withdrawn from them. The ultimate aim was to reach safe to the destination and meet the purpose of your visit and not sitting next to whom you wanted to in the flight!

We tend to forget the purpose of living and grossly enter a plethora of self initiated issues and make ourselves unhappy in situations that would have been completely different if we had reacted in a manner opposite.

Life is only 10% action and 90% reaction

So our reaction is what Influences our happiness for real. If a friend betrays you once and feels sorry later, you have two reactions to it! Seek revenge or offer forgiveness! Seeking revenge might make you happy (or I should say will satisfy your ego) momentarily but forgiveness will bring peace not only to you but to your guilty friend too! So just the reaction would turn around things and create major difference in life.

So, it would not be wrong to say that Happiness that we seek from outside lasts earlier than which we feel from within. Staying happy is in nature of a person(soul), it isn’t borrowed, bought or sought!

So don’t put sooooo many terms and conditions to your happiness, it’s right there within you, you just need to segregate your ego and other negative forces that entangle the sweet emotion of inner happiness. It’s time to unwind…

We all are humans and we are bound to have needs, wants and desires, let the most significant desire be peace and rest all will follow. Remember, desires are meant to fulfill the set living standards but are not the purpose of Life!

Forget, Forgive and move Forward will help stay happier than carrying the burden of all those people, things and situations that made you unhappy for once in the past. Don’t blame being unhappy upon others, the spark of happiness lies right there within you, close your eyes and ignite the spark with positive energy of your own soul. Its No meditation or Yoga, it’s self introspection. In the pursuit of success, fame and power, we tend to get lost in the things and people around us while we forget our very own existence. That’s where unhappiness makes way unto us.

In this context, I’d like to draw your attention to one of my earlier posts on Locus of Control where I talked about how Power we are to control and manage situations of life and how we get trapped by the external influences that affect our entire life.

One Life it is- This One

One Time it is-Now

Don’t wait to be happy for a reason, don’t let a rating agency measure or index your happiness on some listed parameters, index it yourself, define your own happiness and achieve it from within instead of seeking it elsewhere. As many external conditions you put for yourself to be happy, farther you’ll take yourself from reaching happiness.

They say Happy People=Happy Families=Happy world. In business, they say, Happy Employees=Happy Customers. Everyone is there people, families, nation, employees, customers. It’s all us! We just need to find that ” Happy” element and see things changing around us😊

So friends, what if I ask you “Are you happy now?”

If not- Read Again!

If yes- I am happy too!😊 Happy Readers = Happy Me😊

Yours Happily

Shru!