Ever wonder why so many people are unhappy...?Being a happy person generally, I am amazed at the lack of it in other people. On deeper investigation, however, it becomes apparent that it is not that people lack happiness. It is simply that they are unable to recognize happiness in their lives. They are so busy focusing on what is wrong with their lives, what is lacking, what they do not have...that they completely miss all that is actually there!
It is simply a matter of perspective. If one were to stop mid-thought in an unhappy situation, and focus instead on a positive... a have instead of a have not for example, happiness would be instantly achievable. It is an experiment I challenge everyone to try.
Another fail proof way of being happy is to believe that you are responsible for your own happiness. Many of us believe that we need to rely on others to provide happiness for us. But that is too much of a burden to place on another human. It is too great an expectation. Only we can make ourselves happy. All we need to do is be proactive about it. If something makes you happy go out and get it/do it. Don't wait for someone to make it happen for you. You are every bit as capable of making it happen on your own.
Expectations are a happiness killer. If you expect too much you are very likely to feel dejected when you fall short. Be ambitious by all means, but don't set your heart on the moon. Definitely strive for it, give it your all, but do not "expect" anything. If you get to the moon fantastic! If not you never expected to anyway, but you made an attempt at it and that in itself should be enough to give you happiness.
Savor the small pleasures, the everyday happenstances we take for granted. In a traffic jam, take a second to enjoy the colors of the sky, or mull over a pleasant memory. Fussing over the inconvenience of the delay will not make the delay go away...it will only make it more unbearable. On the other hand, however, focusing on a positive like a pleasant memory, or a lovely sky, something....anything, small and insignificant even, but positive will make it more pleasant, more bearable, insignificant even. Perhaps you may find complete and total happiness for just a second, while stuck in a traffic jam, however unbelievable that sounds!
Give it a try...
My guaranteed moments of pure happiness:
Sunsets...my cup is always overflowing
10 comments:
(Excerpt from a mail to a friend on the same topic)
"....I find myself incapable of prayer or at least prayer in the conventional sense. I am so increasingly anti-religion from within that it just does not happen anymore. Some form of hope and prayer is natural and intuitive to human beings and I feel that too...fervently at times, but that's not religion.
I no longer pray/wish for happy times either: there is no point. Everything is relative. Every single happiness or sorrow comes not from circumstance but from our response to our circumstances and therefore the root is all and always within. I can clearly identify times in my life where I had what I then wanted and was, I thought, happy but in reality those times do not afford me any happiness or contentment. On the other hand - I have found reserves of strength and goodness, not anticipated, in myself during very very unhappy times. Pain and pleasure can both be handled positively or negatively and are not in themselves a state of being."
Surprise surprise.. a comment on your 1st entry !!! lol
I myself am a mixed package... I would define myself as a very unhappy person. I have had a troubled childhood, and the past not only clings onto me, it emotionally black mails me into sticking with it, letting it haunt me to its satisfaction.
And then I extract my happiness from very little things in life... squirrels, the smell of freshly cut grass... a subways sandwich...
needless to say... i call myself easily excited but hardly impressed... mainly because i kno the pattern my life follows... i m not allowed to be happy for long periods... the good things in life are never to stay... and thus one has to find joy in the lil things in life...
at least thats how i see it !!!
Sam, Sam...Life is all about the little things... the little joys, the little heartaches. When the big heartaches heal into the little heartaches- ahh that is when we can enjoy them...laugh about them...cherish them.
yea but its not always the case is it !!!
Cheers :)
I am deliberately commenting on the first post on this blog, because I dont want it to be read on a public forum such as comment section itself.
I stumbled on this blog while looking for translation of Meda Ishq and then read through.
You are an articulate woman, was famous and do know better.Don't you get tired of your own relentless defeatist tone on the blog. Seriously, reading it, it was almost euphoric to know who you were. Well, at least i remember the character... Do you?
Though just a child then, it was the time I started questioning absurdity of tradition, and in partcular the systemic oppression of women in our society, and your character was the benchmark, of what a woman could be : Entirely unapologetic of being a woman for one.
You are not that woman, of course, but the deep rooted resentment in your writing is nauseatic, particularly when I cant separate you from the Shahnaz we knew ( the only one I knew).
Problem with literature (Or the most of it)is that it glorifies sadness and loss and vulnerability...
Your poems, about sadness and hope are all beautiful, but you do know better.
I wrote something for a woman, going through an abusive marriage. The whole point was, though her life was indeed a living hell, she still took time to relish in her misery, rather than just laying that all to rest (btw my mentioning that woman has nothing to do with your marital status, but rather for a common affection for misery, you both seem to share alongwith so many of us).
Why dont you come back? Start fighting for women at home, start fighting for some semblance of sanity in our politics? Or gather a few rich spoiled kids in a coffee shop and tell them about Kant or Sartre or free market?
Or stay where you are, keep blogging and remember, there is no point in sadness or anything for that matter
While I apply for a job endlessly in middle eastern countries and go over in my head a million times how to make my own family embrace rationale over religion or tradition, you can do better.:)
Barooq
The melancholy in my writing is not a result of my divorce or my misery. In fact it isn't even a constant thing in my life. On the contrary I am an ecstatically happy woman. Proud of who I am. I make no apologies for myself, my lifestyle and yes even my blog.
It is what it is....
But I appreciated you taking the time to express yourpoint therefore as a host I owe you a response.
Writing is a good release for me when I am feeling less than 100%
That is when my poetry emerges.
Writing is also a good release whn I am in love. And some poems depict that too.
I am most certainly NOT my character. It is ignorance to think I am. I am much more than 14 episodes on TV. I can understand the loss of innocence when you realize I can have many facets, especially if you have preconceivednotions of me.
And I chose the country I live in. I work for what is meaningful to me. I volunteer for causes that are important to me. I initiate and see to completions several ventures that have benefitted my passion and my cause of choice. I resent your high horse mentality and your insolence in telling me what I should do. That is neither your place nor your right. I have parents, and I have a GOD. They are the only two I would seek to obey- and even then I may disagree... (with my parents) (and, yes even with religion)
My reasons for doing thinga are just that "my reasons" and they are mine alone.
I have a point and "I" know what it is. It gives me what I need. It may not be what yours is but then I really do not care to make your point now do I. I am perfectly content enjoying my point.
No offense. Just a response. I'm sure if we met I'd have to hug you because we are simply arguing the same point from opposite ends... but I was incensed enough to spew forth my tirade.
REad it or not at your discretion...
Adios!
Ciao!
Jambo!
Lolzz
You apparently missed some of what I said.
And I ended my long disatribe mentioning the futility of IT all first and then my ownself baba.
Which was the nagation of all what I said above...
I hate being so linear, and I didnt think I had to be here :S
And, I was wrong anyway, you are not that sad... I was just on year 2007 when I commented, 2009 seems happier.
Barooq my dear man!
As I suspected- I knew I would end up liking you and your cynicism a lot, and I did!
A once over at your blog convinced me. I knew you meant no harm. Neither did I. We both have a penchant for "tilting at windmills" and both are equally guilty.
So in true blogger style let me officially enquire if you would agree to be the (Sancho) PAnza to my (Don) Quixote??
(Tongue in cheek)
Hugs mate!
Peace!
PS:Keep visiting... I am curious and appreciative of your insightful (if often) caustic viewpoint. In fact I enjoy it!
Sancho Panza? Really?
Dont you have -say- 53 of those?
Plus, I cant imagine myself on a pony.
If analogy has to be taken books 400 or more years old, in languages other than English, how about I be the Virgil to take you through the nine circles, Alighieri ?
You can meet say Brutus and I can lust after Cleopatra :)
P.S
I will be around if only to see how long can you tolerate me.
And henceforth commenting on what you write next of course, not here.
hi
read this post and i was lost in thought. because i m unhappy. i lost my friend in an accident a year ago. he was my roommate for 3 years. he was my only firend. we were batchmates in university. i have passed my final year in university without any friend. i have not tried to make any. reason i dont know. i m too shy at making friends or expressing my feelings. it takes me years to have confidence in a person and be with him like a friend.
leaving this story apart, i liked the ways u mentioned to feel happy. happiness comes, but without friends it does not last much.
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