with thanks to Alka Bahal for allowing us to share these precious thoughts.
Happiness
– A journey
Each
one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be
unaffected by outside circumstances.”
Mahatma
Gandhi
In
the last few weeks, I find myself become quite intrigued
about the life of Mahatma Gandhi and his teachings. Mahatma Gandhi is
one of the most revered figures in world history. He was a diminutive
man who had the courage to stand up to British Rule in India and
fight for Indian Freedom and independence as well as justice for the
oppressed. Gandhi went to jail several times during this struggle
and yet never harboured any hate or animosity against his oppressors.
Instead he said:
“Whenever
you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love.”
Has
the world forgotten his teachings? Have we forgotten how to be happy
and peaceful, whether things are going our way or not? I find myself
doing a lot of philosophical thinking of late and I want to find out
what can make us happy? Why are so many of us unhappy when we have so
much to be grateful for?
A
wise woman once told me “It is more important to be positive when
things are not going so well. It is easy to be happy and positive
when things are going good, but we forget this when things are not
going well and complain instead.”
I
am trying to implement these values into my life now. There was a
time where I would complain and whine about things – whether it was
work or colleagues or life in general. I found that this would make
me feel negative and stressed and have effects on my health. I would
feel sick, have a headache and feel nauseated and weak. Negativity
grasps your thoughts really hard and doesn’t let go so easily. It
can make you feel depressed and helpless and useless. It tends to
overpower you and you feel stuck in this dark place and don’t seem
to find a way out.
Granted,
it can be hard to find happiness and peace during our “bad times.”
When things do not go well, we try to find scapegoats and blame
other factors for our problems by saying “We are in this situation
because of so and so” or “It’s that one’s fault or this one’s
fault.” We all have done this at some time in our lives – we find
it easier to blame other factors or situations for our problems
rather than try to find a way out of them. I have been thinking
recently, maybe if we started working more on finding solutions to
our problems rather than complaining and finding a scapegoat for
them, we would save time and perhaps find a way for the situation to
become “ideal” again.
This
brings me to another question: Why be unhappy in the first place? A
lot of people will say things like “I am not happy because I don’t
like my job” or “I do not like where I live,” or even things
like “I do not have enough money” or “My life sucks.” Then I
wonder, if money makes people happy, why are some of the world’s
happiest people poor and many celebrities and rich people on drugs
and unhappy?? And if your job is causing you grief, try look for
other work or find a career change. If you feel your life sucks,
well you are responsible for your own life, find things that make you
happy and do them.
I
was always told when I was younger to “count your blessings.” I
find in the world these days people don’t know what this means or
have somewhat overlooked this. Many of us seem to be competing in a
rat race and are engrossed in trying to buy the latest cars and have
the newest gadgets and trying to keep up with the Jones’. We tend
to compare ourselves to others who are more affluent and successful
than ourselves and go “He has a better car than me,” “He earns
more than me,” and such goes on. We feel somewhat cheated
especially if we feel we deserve better and someone else got
something that we wanted. Envy is a vice; it can breed hate and again
leads to negativity and deterioration of one’s health and peace of
mind.
As
I have been through this journey, I have found that indeed, happiness
comes from within. When you are unhappy or insecure in something
about yourself, it prevents you from being truly happy and positive.
We have to learn how to love and forgive ourselves. Whatever it is
that happened in the past, or whatever decisions you made before that
have led you to an unhappy state, you have to let it go and find a
solution to restore your state of mind to peace again. Let’s count
our blessings every day. We have the biggest blessing of all –
life, the present. Let’s make the most of each day we live and
learn and love. This will ensure positivity and happiness. Give it a
go! You will be surprised what happens when you start to condition
your mind to take responsibility for your own happiness and to
challenge every negative thought with a positive one. I keep telling
myself– “Pretend you are Muhammad Ali, in a boxing ring and you
are not going to go down without a fight.”
A big thank-you to Alka for allowing us to share these thoughts, because we all strive to find happiness, and too many people look to outside factors, when really we must start by looking in.
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