Beyond the Chase: Discovering Happiness Within Yourself

 Today everyone is chasing happiness either by hook or by crook. But where is happiness really found? What are the ways one can achieve happiness? Is it directed outward or is it directed inward? Is happiness more of what we look for outside or is happiness something that just comes from within? I strongly believe happiness comes from within. 

One day I was going to a "chai ki tapri" in India. As I was going to the chai ki tapri, the person who cooks the tea asked me, "Kya loge sahab?" when he asked me, I said, ek special adharak wali chai. He was delighted that I asked the adharak wali chai, and as he was cooking the chai he was singing a song, and enjoying himself while cooking the tea for me. He earns only Rs 10 in that tea, and then I understood, that this person is only earning Rs. 10 for a tea and look at how much he is enjoying his work. It was a lesson I learnt myself, maybe it's not the material things that give you happiness, in fact happiness is more a decision than anything else. It's more about the attitude one carries, not the clothes one wears. Yes clothes do matter, but someone with a bad attitude is worse than anything else. Nevermind, the point here is that we can enjoy working even while we earn Rs. 10, we can sing out loud making a chai, then why not just decide to be happy? Why not believe that happiness is more internal than external, not just believe but it's god's honest truth. 

A lot of times, we are chasing people, wanting that we will be happy when we find others. We will be happy when we find our life partner, we will be happy when we find a great friend, we will be happy when  something good happens, we will be happy when we earn so and so money, but the truth is happiness lies within yourself and it really does not come from others. It's a choice we make everyday to be happy. Just like any other skill, happiness is just a skill and a skill can be learned. You can find much better skills as you grow and work a bit harder. So happiness is really within. 

Wow, such a beautiful quote, "Unless one is happy within one's own heart, one cannot be happy no matter what one acquires." You can earn millions and millions of dollars, but you are not happy with your own heart, you would not be satisfied with anything. I am not saying don't earn millions of dollars, but make sure that your happiness depends more on you and not on anyone else. Not on people, not on money, not on wealth. 

Now that we know why is happiness coming from within, we need to understand how is happiness really earned. In reality happiness is earned in the present moment. For us to be in the present moment, we need to make peace with our past, whatever happened in our past, good, bad, ugly, worst, whatever it was that happened, we need to forget it and move forward. What will happen in the future, is something you can look forward to, but not worry. Understand that the only moment we have is the present, the past does not exist, whatever happened, happened. Leave it behind. Carry forward happy and positive experiences and ignore the negative. If possible learn from your negative experiences, but keep moving forward. The next is the future, we cannot really think too far ahead of ourselves or we would stop enjoying this very moment that's passing by. Having a vision is a great thing and working towards it is also wonderful, but that does not mean that we worry about the vision. The present moment is everything and we should just know that. Delete your memory and see how light you will feel. 

Now let's understand some important keys to happiness that I feel: 

1. Staying in the present: This is probably one of the most important things in life. Sometimes we take our lives so seriously that we forget staying present in the moment and we tend to move back and forth between the future and the past. However, life is lived in the present, think about what you need to do right now to achieve so and so in the future. The bold word is now, at this very moment. 

2. Laughing more: Having a sense of humour about life in itself is very important to deal with the tough and the bad times. No matter what we do in our lives, bad times and tough times will come in everyone's life, but if you deal with those moments with a smile on your face, life will be simpler.  

3. Learning more: In my opinion, we as humans are hardwired towards mystery and learning more about ourselves and others. I strongly believe that learning should not come only academically, but we should be learning in each and every moment of our lives. Learning a new language is wonderful, learning a new skill is beautiful and learning about anything in general is just wonderful. Life is just a series of learning good things to be happy. 

4. Playing more/Following your passion : I have found that when I play a sport like cricket or football, I totally enjoy those moments in my life. I am totally in the present while playing a sport, my emotions are channelized well during the moment and more importantly I feel like I am using the time wisely. So understand your passion, it can be anything like music, sports, or even simply chilling with your friends. 

5. Being more forgiving: Sometimes we all get into little fights with people. People tend to attack your ego, people tend to be rough with you, what's more important during that time is that you need to forgive people and look ahead in life. A forgiving attitude will make sure that you don't take them too seriously and live your own life rather than worrying too much about others. Not having grudges will also help you become more forgiving and you will totally start to live your life in the present moment.

6. Being positive: We all go through negative situations in life, for an example personally for me, it was a layoff. I was laid off from a very good job and I still fear that happening the next time. But what's more important is I found a silver lining in that situation, I started learning more skills. I started developing a design framework towards life and there were so many things I learnt about life during that time that I can't even tell you how good that was. See an opportunity in adversity. 

7. Gratitude: Whatever you have in your life, whatever it is, a small house, a big house or even a bungalow, be happy with what you have. Once you are happy and grateful for the little things in your life, God will give you more of it. Don't worry, God will take care of it. 

8. Purpose and Meaning: In order to be happy we should have a purpose and meaning to our life. Whether it's our work, think about how your work contributes to the lives of others, whether it's your relationship think about how you are contributing in your relationships, these are the small things when thought about bring a huge change in mindset and thinking. Be of service and value to others. 

9. It's all small stuff: Most importantly, don't take life too seriously, remember it's all small stuff. If someone says something to you, remember it's just a joke and don't take things personally. If you fail at something, it's not going to matter in a year's time and so it's all the small stuff. 

Hope you apply at least one of these things in your life and I wish the best for you and be happy and worry less. Have a wonderful day !