A small inspiration

Happiness

What is happiness? 

A quite stupid question, really. Like, of course we all know what is happiness. And have many times experienced it too, right? Basically a state where you are happy, pleased, and  joyful. But here I am asking you about real happiness and whether you are at that position where you feel it daily.

Now, let's say you are going with your friends to the theatre to watch your favourite movie. You are excited, thrilled when your favourite scenes come and after watching the movie you have a good lunch in your favourite restaurant. So you can say that you were happy. And yes you were. But the only problem is that, this happiness is not what I am talking about. This is not real, genuine happiness. I am not saying that this is not happiness, or it's fake. What I am saying is that the actual happiness is much different than this. And that is something that I want to discuss today in this chapter.

Q. WHAT IS REAL HAPPINESS?

This is a question that I see almost daily. Whether it is in real life, or books and movies. School, College, home. Everywhere. I have noticed that people constantly ask each other that how can I be more happy or what should I start doing. And trust me, I don't know the answer to these questions either. But, recently I learned something, and I noticed that from the past few months I have felt a change. And that is what I want to tell you.

Real happiness is not going to a movie theatre to watch your favourite movie or going to a foreign place. It is not celebrating your birthday with a bunch of friends and family members, neither is it wearing a fancy dress from somewhere very expensive. Nor is it getting good grades on a test, you really worked hard for.

These are all situations, created by excitement, which is actually a stimulus for happiness. This stimulus is obviously created by hormones and you can say some neurones too. Here a question may arise, that , still it is happiness. Even if, it is a response to the excitement. I want to make this very clear that, yes it is happiness, no doubt, but the only difference between this and real happiness is that, real happiness does not require a stimulus, whereas this happiness is created by a stimulus.

We can define real happiness as a state of being content and relaxed, despite the difficulties you are facing every now and then. You feel secure with yourself and you are at peace. You do not require someone else to create that feeling of happiness for you, nor you need any external factors ( like the ones discussed above) to be at peace. I am not saying that for real happiness, you need to be alone. Of course, everyone wants a company every now and then. No one likes to stay completely isolated, not even introverts. Whether it is your best friend, or a favourite teacher/ mentor, a family member, everyone requires company. After all we are called social animals.Well,what I am saying is that, to get to that feeling of peace, contentment and relaxation, you first need to understand yourself and get yourself to be at peace with you. Because once you are friends with yourself, you actually start to experience the happiness. And why am I asking you to be your own best friend? Well for one, most of the problems we face in life is due to us. We compare ourselves to others, we feel that we are incapable to do this (whatever the thing is), we feel we will never be able to get to the level we want to, we think that our goals for life are too high and we must lower them so that we can actually achieve them. We basically doubt ourselves and do not put our trust in ourselves, which is one of the main reasons why we can't do anything and as a result never feel any happiness. Because once you doubt yourselves, obviously the people will doubt you even more. If you believe in yourself, you don't care one bit of what others say and actually do it, despite other people's efforts to stop you. And this is not just about grades and academic success. You can apply it to all areas of life. We don't just compare our grades to people, we compare our whole self to people. Whether it is beauty, personality, or weight ( definitely the most common). Let's say you have a classmate, with gorgeous honey eyes and dark brown hair. Whereas you probably have blue eyes and plain blonde hair. * Sigh*. Look at her and look at you. You don't stand a chance against her. She is beautiful and you are.... plain. She is intelligent, and you barely manage to scratch an average. You would have probably thought like this. At least once in your life. And trust me, this is not something you should be doing. Look at you, blonde hair. Beautiful. Simple but pretty. Blue eyes, like the sky and the ocean. Such a pretty combination. Blonde and blue. Try and motivate yourself. Have you ever thought, of any similarity between blonde and brown. They are two completely different colours. Or blue and honey? They both are different. She is beautiful in her own way and you are beautiful in your own. And this is a fact, that you need to get in your brain! As far as intelligent is concerned, I hope I have made growth and fixed mindset clear. You can always improve by working hard. And that girl (that I am talking about), you don't know if she is intelligent by birth or, by hard work. So please, focus on yourself. Let's say you are fat and there is another girl who is slim. You also want to be slim, but don't want to stop eating your favourite food, or don't want to exercise daily. Solution: don't. Just be happy as you are. Accept yourself for who you are. What? Fat people are also beautiful, in their own way. You are cute, chubby, adorable and you should be happy. Just like Molly Weasely in Harry Potter or Luna Lovegood (P.s she is my favourite character ). If you have seen Harry Potter, you will know the Weasely's were poor. But they were happy in their own life, their own family. And due to that happiness, they managed their budget, and their other problems. Molly Weasely was classified to be fat ( by draco Malfoy), but did she care that she is plump? Or she had a huge temper? Nope. She was beautiful in her own way, by being a lovely ( and strict to the twins ) mother. She took care of Harry like she was his mother. She was an excellent cook, and a very good member of the order. On the other hand, Luna was called mad by many, just because she had a different perspective about the world and believed in many things that others didn't. She was beautiful in her own way. Did she care about those nicknames people called her? No. She would have felt bad at some point, but she loved herself enough to not care about them. Thus, she was happy in her own world.

So basically my point is to learn to be at peace with yourself and eventually you will find happiness, because despite the difficulties arising every now and then you will be able to deal with them and not throw yourself into a puddle of stress, anger, comparison, annoyance and all those other feelings. Learn about yourself. Know what you like and don't. Try and learn some new skills, hobbies etc. Enjoy with yourself. Try and be independent and responsible. As a result whenever you encounter people in your daily life, they may say something bad to you but you won't care. They may praise you, very good. Say thanks to them. They may spend time with you, doing something you like. Enjoy that time. Be thankful for it. This is a special bonus added in your happiness. And this was the happiness I was discussing in the beginning. It is happiness, but it's more of a treat. Like cream added to your chocolate cake. And that chocolate cake is the happiness already made by you, in your life with you. And that cream is the extra amount of happiness you get to experience every now and then. 

I hope it's clear now. There is just one question left, how can you be at peace with yourself? My number one tip is read a couple of self development stories. I have mentioned many in my previous chapter, and I am sure they will work. I don't know how they do, but whenever I read them I feel more motivated, positive and energetic. The writers explain everything in such a way that you feel like yes I can do it and I will do it. One of my favourite books is the slight edge by Jeff Olson and currently I am reading atomic habits by James clear. It is a really good book and you should give it a try. And yeah, I definitely recommend you read books written by Paulo Coelho and Khalid Hosseini. The second tip I can give you is to realise that life is not perfect. There are ups and downs everywhere. And in some cases there are more downs than ups. You just need to deal with them without being getting too stressed. It is hard but once you try it, everything falls in place. The third tip I can give is to not imagine and chase for an idealistic life. This is what I said in tip number two, that there are both ups and downs and you have to deal with them positively. If you continue to search for an ideal life, I am sorry to say but you won't succeed. Even the biggest film stars or movie makers, billionaire's etc face problems in life. So try and work hard to get to that position, where your life is near to ideal but the fact remains that it can never be 100% ideal. I am truly sorry if I am being a bit too straightforward, or I have crushed your dreams. I just want you to know. And I don't want you to stop working hard. Just believe that one day will come where all your dreams will be fulfilled. But never dream this that your life will change in a day. It takes years of hard work. The final tip I can give you is that, be happy with what you have now, be happy with how you are now. Never stop working hard, and never get frustrated, if you are not getting your results now. Just like I said it takes time, and appreciate the small improvements you are doing and the things you have now. And yes, this tip may sound weird but talk to yourself every now and then. See what you want, your likes, dislikes, motivate yourself daily, see what things you find difficult and easy. Then try the hard ones and with practice you will be able to them. See if your goals are high but realistic enough that you can actually achieve them with hard work. They shouldn't be something like this, that you want to fly to the moon, without a rocket. I mean you can go to the moon, but seriously, without a rocket?

And that's all. If you work consistently using these tips you will be able to find happiness in no time.