How Not to Suck in Life!

I happen to come across many people and looking into thier eyes I can tell they have been unhappy, they have been sad, they have been victimised and they have been unsatisfied with thier lives. I sometimes look in the mirror to find the same look radiating through my eyes. I can’t hide that, I can’t pretend to be happy. And when I try, all I get is more unhappiness, more dissatisfaction, more dillusion and more resent. I’ve heard people complaining about thier life being too hard to live, that the road to success is a long uphill, long enough to get them easily loose hope at the very outset, that happiness is nothing more than a distant dream that is far beyond thier reach. More often than not, I find myself victim of the same complaining nature. I struggle hard because I am aware that success in life will not depend on how hard it was to achieve but on my desire to succeed. But I get far more failures than successes. Yet I’m able to rise everytime. I’m always ready to give it a better shot, without being sure it would work this time. My desire to succeed doesn’t pushes me as hard as my passion for growth. I am more willing to risk failing because I know it would help me grow, which in turn, would enable me to see life differently, regardless of whether I succeed or fail. I am willing to loose what I have for what I don’t have. And I know I may loose both, but that wouldn’t stop me, because deep inside I know, I have nothing more to loose than my own life, my time on earth, which I’ll loose anyway. And I also believe that, there’s something inside us, that noone can take away from us, something we would never loose, and life, at least in parts, can be defined as the process of discovering that inner core and bringing it to the world so that everyone can benefit from it.

Happiness is a very broad topic for me to write. In fact, it is more broad than most of us will ever discover. Thousands of books have been written on happiness and millions of people have said that they know the secret of happiness. I don’t wish to share those secrets, but to question that does happiness really have to be a secret? I don’t know about what most people will say about it, but I cannot believe happiness as some secret technique known only to few people. I genuinely believe that happiness is not a pursuit in itself but is the consequence of a pursuit that has a value higher than our own lives. It is the result of living for something we are willing to die for. And then, it is the cosequence of treading to unknown lands, sailing through endless ocean, of discovering our uniqueness and growing in all of the aforementioned processes. The main objective of our existence is not happiness, but growth and contribution, and the more we realise it, the happier we become. Our happiness is also deeply connected to happiness of our fellow beings, and no matter how hard we try, we can’t separate our own happiness from happiness of those, we love deeply.

Thinking about happiness, a natural question comes to mind. How success is related to happiness. In my opinion, success is not the end, but a mean to make possible what we are truly here for, contribution. All that our success do is that it enables us to make greater contribution in the world we live in. If we can ever be truly happy, I believe, it will be because we have contributed and lived our life for a higher cause than our own lives.

And then we face problems that make us unhappy. What to do about those problems? The most important question to ask when we face a problem is that, are we parts of the problem or parts of the solution? You’ll solve all the problem you’ll ever face, if you can help other people  solve thier problems. Now, though it may seem to many a very contradictory statement, it is exactly the way it is. We never really solve a problem by finding a solution but by being a solution. The more I discover the realities of life, more I’m convinced about the truth in this statement.

Though happiness is considered highly subjective and it’s elements varies from people to people, I firmly believe that the basic nature of real happiness is same and universal, and have the same root or origin. I happen to disagree, to some extent, happiness as the only pursuit of life. I don’t see it congruent to what I believe, and what I have discovered. Though, I agree that our real purpose is something that would bring us real happiness, but I don’t believe that the real happiness is itself the real purpose. There are certain school of thoughts on happiness I disagree with, primarily because of my own discovery through my own insights.

I don’t think it is true. The person who is contended, has stopped to grow. He is someone who is not willing to take risks or pain for realisation of a goal other than what he has already achieved. He refrains from taking any initiative to make his life better than present. He doesn’t views his life as an adventure and as a process of self-discovery, as a process of learning and growing. He doesn’t reveres life for what it is. He is merely satisfied, basically in most cases, outwardly and yells to the world he is really happy because he is contended. But inside he knows he has been a looser, someone who accepted defeat and someone who let go the process of achieving more just because it was a difficult path to tread on. Please note the contentment I am talking about is not satisfaction we get when we achieve something worthwhile, or the desire to continue growing through a particular route we have chosen for ourselves, such that we are contended with this route. But I’m talking about the contentment that cripples us, that take away from us our ability to do more. I’m talking about apathy, the unwillingness to be more, grow more or do more. While discontentment, is not what I’m advocating for, but it is certainly better than contentment. What I am really advocating for, is the desire to grow and learn, the willingness to understand the world and life better and the willingness to contribute more and achieve more.

While gratefulness for what we have is very important attribute of character and I certainly appreciate a person who is grateful for what he has been given, by god and by other people around, it is very less to do with happiness of that person. Gratefulness is just one half of what truly produces happiness. It is just one side of the coin. Being grateful for what we have will only make us partly happy, real happiness will come if we knew in addition, that we can create what we want with what we have. Being grateful for something we have, is certainly a good thing, but how we view what we have, completes the picture and makes us truly happy.

While I view success as something really important and obviously a good thing, yet I am sure, that success has no direct correlation with our happiness. If I succeed financially, I shall have more money, but whether I’d be happy or not, will always be independent of how much money I have. Though with money I can buy things of pleasures, but they would give me just that, pleasure and pleasure is not happiness. Far from that, it is a sweet poison, that destroys slowly our inner and outer balance, makes us lethargic and unhealthy, mentally, physically and spiritually. So, I’m oppssed to financial success? You might be wondering? No, certainly not. I appreciate anyone and everyone, who has succeeded financially by fair means, all I am trying to say is, the happiness of that person will not depend on his success. Chances are that the person who is financially successful, has done so by bringing some value in the world, and if he has succeeded this way, I’ll be the first to bet, that he is a happy person. But with success comes, more power, and more freedom, and the happiness of the person who succeeded, will depend on how he chooses to use this power and freedom, whether he will use it to produce more value or he will use it for his personal interests, will determine he will be truly happy or not.

I know you also think the same. Yeah, you are right. But have you asked yourself how much of your time and energy you waste on looking better, on being popular among your peers, on outward pretentions? I have asked myself and have found that for a quite long period in my life, a very large portion of my energy, I have been wasting on being popular, among people whom I don’t know. Looking good in the social mirror have always been important to me, until the day I found that it is of no use. Not only that it doesn’t produces happiness, it also kindles within me, deep resentment, long term guilt and breeds distrust among those who know me. I have suffered a shift in my perspective, as I found that how happy I am is dependent on my relationship with people who love me regardless of how I look. It is dependent on how much of the love I am able to repay. Happiness will not depend on how popular you become but how deeply you are connected to those you love and those who love you. It is found in the beauty and innocence of true love.

So according to me, there’re just two ingredients of a happy life, one is contribution and other is love. The more you have of the two, the more happy you will become.