This is how I learned what is happiness! 😃
Let’s begin with a short story:
When I was in school, everyone used to consider me a bum, jerk, maniac, etc. You understood what I meant, right? Every teacher was like, “Krupal is a slow writer!” or “Krupal is weak?” “He doesn’t pay attention in the class!” “”Blah! Blah!”. Other students were also like, “You keep quiet, stupid!” I did answer them in their language most of the time, but initially, I just ignored them till they got more confidence to speak recklessly.
Please read the full story I’m not sharing what I have achieved but rather what I have actually learned from the experience about real happiness and satisfaction.
I felt really, really demoralized and insulted. But when I went for a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering, I worked really hard to prove myself, not to the teachers, not to the nasty and insane people around me, but to myself, and I was somehow able to achieve my goals by God’s grace.
I was always (throughout) in the top three (in all sorts of ways: in grades, in projects, in extracurricular activities, etc.) students in the college and earned my diploma in mechanical engineering with a 9.43 GPA (CGPA) and I also got admission in one of the top colleges for my bachelor’s degree. I was really happy throughout the journey and after the achievement.
Soon I started working on some projects for myself and for some organisations, and together with my team we were able to develop a few great, world-class technologies and products, overall some great ideas. This really had a slight bad effect on my grades but I was still happy because I was working on what mattered to me. I admired my achievements. So again, I was really happy and satisfied.
Now I was like, Yeah, baby, I’m good! and took even greater challenges with only my room as my research lab, but this time I didn’t quite get the results I expected initially after several iterations and was slightly upset, demoralised, and kind of disappointed. So I started to focus back on studies at the end of the semester. I didn’t get the result quite as expected due to multiple reasons, but let’s forget that for a while. As a result, now I was even more depressed and really overstressed.
After a couple of days, I started practicing meditation, being inspired by the Hollywood movie “Eat, Pray, and Love.“. I didn’t expect that it would be extraordinarily effective at first, but as I kept on practicing it for weeks and months now, I feel far better. Not only have I learned how to manage stress, but I’m even more focused and efficient now. After a few days of starting meditation practice, I also started practicing Kenpo (pronounced as KeMpo), Karate, Tai-Chi, and cooking (as it felt more like a martial artist and a meditator as I was slightly more independent than before). I was able to achieve a kind of equilibrium in my life.
Recently I was analyzing the same story that I just told you to seek mistakes I made in the past, so not to repeat them, and I found the secret of happiness—I call it happiness redefined. I’ve concluded that whenever I was happy, I was happy only for a day or two, maybe, but where lies the wisdom, smartness, or bravery in being happy for a couple of days in every 365 days (struggling the rest of the week or year). Because only for a day or two I was without any desires, and the rest of the time I was working too hard to achieve stress and tiredness for the sake of these couple of happy days.
I’m not telling you to stop working, but stop worrying because worrying never helps. Take a look at this quote:
“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it’s not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.”
― Dalai Lama XIV
I also found that the chase towards the accomplishment of one’s desires is an endless chase, and also all the lessons learned, the acquisition of strength and wisdom, and the admirable memories lie in the journey itself and not in the destination.
Let’s assume that you won a Noble Prize in your subject, or maybe you won an Oscar. The day when you’re called on the stage and you’re allowed to speak, what would be the words that will come out of your mouth? I can guarantee that you’ll have nothing to say other than the beautiful and memorable incidents of the past and the awesome people who accompanied you in the past.
The only thing you’re going to remember is the journey, and the achievement is just a trigger that reminds you how far you have come. Even our life is such a great example of this concept; birth is a thing you can’t control, and death is a destination we all share, but what you do in between these two is the only thing that matters. Again, the journey is the only thing that counts. Why shouldn’t one enjoy the journey?
My concept of happiness is as follows:
– Happiness is within, happiness is without any reasons, happiness is the absence of expectations, being happy is our birthright, come-on guys, we don’t need a reason to be happy, we do need a reason to be sad, to be angry, to be frustrated but we don’t need a reason to be happy. That’s what meditation teaches.
– That’s what we are supposed to do, to be happy in the lap of such a vast, distinct and beautiful nature and in this union of a variety of people, species of plants and animals. Does the sun need a reason to shed light? Does the water need a reason to flow? Does the earth need a reason for a rotation? Nope!
– They just do what they need to, similarly, we must do what is needed i.e. to be happy, to spread happiness, love, and kindness. The world needs it from us now, or else we’ll not have to wait for some alien species or intelligent robots, we are enough to destroy ourselves and the planet
I ain’t gonna force you to accept it blindly, I know how hard it is to believe. So take a moment to relax, stop chasing blindly, think of what you are doing and what I just said accept whatever you think was useful delete the rest, rethink and focus on your goal before you resume your journey!
I hope this post serves you in increasing your knowledge repository at-least to a minute extent. Feel free to contact me in case of question and your comments will be extremely enlightening.
Please, Like, Share and Comment, it would be a great way to appreciate my hard work and very encouraging for my next post. Thank-You for Reading 🙂
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