ARE WE REALLY HAPPY?


AM I REALLY HAPPY? ARE WE REALLY HAPPY? IS MY FAMILY REALLY HAPPY? ARE MY FRIENDS REALLY HAPPY? IS THE WORLD REALLY HAPPY?

Or are we fooling ourselves! Some days I am forced into believing that most of us are just going through the grind, toiling our way through days, which soon turn into months and months which before you know it, turn into years.

We wake up, rush to work, whether at the office or home, the children are pushed to attend their schools and colleges, meet the same people, do our jobs, get back home, get busy again, with phones and the idiot box and then off to la-la land, looking forward to...what...what is it that we really want from our lives, what is it that really makes us happy?

Material success? Fame? Family? Friends? Worldly success?  What, I have been pondering, for the last some days, makes me and others around me happy? Have I reached a conclusive answer...no...because there isn't one. 

It's easy to be sad and depressed. All we have to do is run after money and fame and nothing else, set high expectations of others and of ourselves, compare ourselves and our lives to others we perceive to be happier and better than us, forget that there will always be someone who is richer, more successful, slimmer, more famous than us, and the worst of it all, choose not to be happy.


It's not so complicated - choosing to be happy. We can start with small things like surrendering to the flow of life, letting go of our need to control things and people who surround us, expecting less, putting our faith in ourselves and our inner voice, being more spontaneous, spending less time listening to what others have to say about us, and spending even lesser time to our own critical voices ( which can lead to anxiety and panic), changing the way we perceive the world and ourselves, slowing down and reflecting, letting go of regrets, being passionate, and the most important of all, aiming and setting our goal to be happy. 

Is it that easy? No, of course not. But we can always try, can't we! Happiness is a choice. It is all within us. We can opt to remain miserable or we can pick peace of mind and contentment. Human nature per se, contradicts the lives we are living, a mechanised, automated world which is supposed to make life simpler. But, unfortunately, the world and its people are not so simple. We are complicated beings who have made our lives more arduous than ever before. We want more, we desire more, we expect more, we crave more...we have become greedier, hungrier, lazier, more pretentious and more selfish. 

But then again, we need to choose, to decide where our happiness lies and go for it. Let life flow its natural course. Therein lies peace of mind and contentment. 


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