Living Happily

Well, a common question: How can we live our life happily? without tension and anxieties, sadness and pain... (To note here is that I am not talking about physical disease or injury; I am talking about mental discomforts.) Well, the basic cause to all unhappiness in our lives is that we expect. This may seem absurd at first; but a deeper thought will help me explain this. We are unhappy only when we expect something but don't get it.

Let me cite a few examples... An adult feels unsatisfied if his own son doesnt bid him "नमस्ते", because he expects him to. He won't feel anything if his neighbour's son doesnt wish him, because he doesnt expect him to. An intelligent student feels sad if he/she can't make it to his goal of 90%, while a weak student never feels sad on seeing his results. He didn't expect to score anything high. Some deep thoughts on this topic will help you realize that you can relate any of your sorrows to this. One feels sad when his father or mother scolds him, because he never expects this. He always expects them to appreciate him. These are very small scale examples. Just try and you'll believe...

To lead live happily, one has to try to stop expecting... You'll feel that it's like one of the most tough jobs. My reply to that would be, "Aye! Did you think you'll get away from sorrows so easily? " I agree that to not expect anything from your acquaintances and this world is near to impossible (This is the ultimate feeling of samta). But we can try to expect less, and then our sorrows are bound to lessen.Whenever you feel sad, or pained, just think of those who are more unhappy than you; who face more difficulties in their lives. If you feel sad about the fact that you couldnt make it to a particular college, you wanted so badly; think about millions of those who can't even think of college or those who go to a poorer college. (Try this; this actually works... Please just try it once.) Human tendency is somewhat opposite. If we don't have enough money for some of our needs (this is the case with even the richest people on earth; our need grows with the money in our hand), we tend to think of the people richer than us. We think, "Oh this guy has a Merc, while I just have a Maruti 800". We don't think that millions of people don't even possess a two-wheeler. Think that you are lucky that you've got what you've got; and just think how your life would have been worse if you were them. One thing I would mention here is that money can never ever bring you happiness. Your desires will grow with the money you have. Magnanimous people have always been there in every era of the earth but there was not one era when poverty vanished.