CREATE YOUR OWN HAPPINESS AND FIND YOUR INNER PEACE.
When I add a spoon of honey to my tea, I give thanks to a dozen bees for the work of their whole lives……Honeyeaters know that to have a joyful heart one must live life like the bees, sipping the sweet nectar from each moment as it blooms.
-Ingrid Goff-Maidoff
Have you ever seen a child asking for ways to be happy and searching for some peace? Maybe not, so why they are not concerned about the most important things labelled as the essence of every human goal and achievement? Probably because they already have it or their lack of focused concern for attaining these is the key to the solace they have.
As we grow up we become occupied and obsessed with the materialistic world around us. The state of bliss, the sheer happiness and peace innate to us is lost and forgotten. The never ending search begins and we desperately try everything possible in our power and not to forget we take every advice.
During this testing pandemic time, the human strength is tested at its best. The acceptance, cooperativeness, resilience, endurance, courage, planning, acceptance, sense of responsibility, patience and other such qualities are shaken to the core. There are numerous calls made to the mental health professionals to seek help in overcoming the lingering anxiety and depression. The elevated levels of hopelessness are giving way to the grief. People are losing their loved ones. They are facing the worst and the most frightening era of human race is leaving them broken and meaningless. Those who are facing the situation head-on are exhausted after a tedious resistance put up by them. The ones who are staying at home and managed to be safe are also losing sanctity and are haunted by feelings of insecurity and uncertainty. Perhaps, this is the reason that every newspaper, media blog, words of spiritual leaders, podcasts of mental health professionals are talking about ways to be calm, what is happiness, how to achieve it, how to find peace and the like.
Reading and listening to all this creates a sense of motivation which gradually fades away leaving us back in the same state from where we started. There could be various reasons for this but, one of them is that we are trying to follow the footsteps taken by the writers or speakers; we are attempting to experience what they had felt by doing the things mentioned by them. Simply put, we start expecting relief from these sources and expectations change the purity of devotion we should have to reach to the desired state.
What we can do? There is no right or wrong answer to this question, it is just a riddle we have developed over the years and now is the time to untangle the coiled chaos and settle with the best. Happiness is a state of mind not amalgamated by any negative thought or concern about past and future. Happiness lies in the moment we are in and it has different meaning for every one of us. For some it could be sitting by the window seat in a train journey, for some having a sip of tea in the morning while they are sitting in the balcony surrounded with greenery, for some it could be talking to their friend, to others it could be cooking a meal, it could be watching your favourite T.V. show when you are engrossed in it, it could be singing in your coarse voice a rhapsody without realising who is listening it, it could be sketching or doodling, it could be dancing for a minute or two, watering the plants, reading one page of a book, shopping for the groceries or your favourite dress, talking to your neighbour through the window or balcony, going for a walk, gym, sitting in the park, it could be driving, it could be organising your wardrobe, listening to music, playing with kids and might even doing your office job. The array of such moments is expandable and flexible.
Every waking hour of a human life is filled with a string of activities performed by us. Some of these activities make us forget the burden we carry from our past and the worries we create for our future. These are the times when we are frozen in the moment so engrossed that we don’t even regret if it is extended to a few more minutes. Not to dismiss the fact that we feel intrinsically motivated for the rest of the day after having such moments. Is it not right to say that this is the happiness we all are looking for is available to us in brief time slots and we are overlooking them?
As far as we try to find peace we say that the human misery makes us restless. These are tough times and it is not possible to relax and stay calm. Do we realise that having abundance of joy and happiness undermines their value? Is it not justified to have sorrow and suffering along the way to keep on appraising the alternates?
Indeed it is important to have both sides of the coin tossed and thrown to us at regular intervals of time to keep our lives balanced and complete. The mere acceptance of this coexistence of pain and pleasure, sadness and happiness, sorrow and joy can make us more peaceful. It can reduce our complaints and dissatisfaction. It can help us to see the wider and more realistic perspective of existence.
Every living being can start cherishing the little moments of bliss they receive while doing something in their day and if they can see the complete circle of life knitted with all kind of states ranging from positives and negatives. No segregation of favorable circumstances and unfavorable circumstances can make us more resilient and hence more happy and at peace. Start cherishing more such engrossing moments without guilt and don’t be embarrassed of being depressed, just as children can create their own happiness and finds their own peace without any external guidance.