It began with a question, Which one do you prefer? A so-so living but with the one you love or a good living without the one you love? tough choice eh?
Now which one do you choose?
My answer was, since I'm an egoistic person, I would say the second option. I prefer a good living without the one I love. The problem lies in me, in my happiness level. I need to feel happy first before I can make other people happy and I need to live my life a good life before I can make someone's live better. So I can't do that if I live in a so-so condition.
Well, it then moved to the question what defines happiness?
I'm not a man of short word. I can't make my point in 160 characters, so I need to write a whole blog to make my point, hahaha...
Long story short, I just think in the cab on my way back, "Happiness is, if you can see yourself in the mirror and smile... even though the whole world has every reason to bring you down..."
Just like a wise professor once said, "Success doesn't lead to happiness, but with a happy heart, you can create a success of your own."
All this time I always think, "Why if the gas mask fall in the airplane, we have to put the mask on our face first before helping others?"
I always thought of that maybe I should put it to other first before I put it on my self, because I thought that it is the most selfless act. But then I think again, "How can I help others if I ran out of air?"
So actually, by helping myself, I actually make myself capable of helping other and that is not a selfish act. It is the right thing to do. So If I'm not happy, how can I make other people happy?
But everything that happen in this life always finds a way to make our lips frown and out forehead wrinkle-y. The thought of study, the thought of financial issue, the thought of living in another country, the thought of others can easily bring us down. just smile, even though it's a fake one. Smile you bastard smile...
Worry is one thing that can take happiness away from you. A wise man once said that, "Worry is actually do nothing but take away your smile and make you over-think problems, because it doesn't lessen the problem that you're facing, worry is making it even worse..."
Live in the present. Because you can't change what's happened in the past and you're not an oracle, you can't see the future. Live in the now, there's a reason why they call it present. It makes me remember, back a couple days ago, a professor ask the class to write their goal in the next 5 years time. I wrote, "My personal goal would be live happily on a daily basis"
Now the next question should be, HOW? How can we be happy?
My tips would be, Live in the Positivity.
You can also define happiness as "the ability to see a silver lining through every storm." As dark as a storm may be, but there's always a silver lining to that. As bad as our daily life can be, there must be a silver lining to that. The happiest person on earth would be a person who can see the silver lining and actually take lessons from that.
Well it is not an easy thing to do, because we sometimes choose to see the negativity, because it's the reality that surrounds the silver lining and we chose to bury our self in the cloud of negativity. Singapore once said to be the unhappiest country in the world, despite the living condition that we can see. If you can really go to the island of Java in Indonesia and see some grandma and grandpa who lives there. They don't have fancy house, fancy food and even fancy beds. But they can live a happy life.
I always think that Happiness is a luxury thing. It's the next step after you gain a financial stability. I always thinks that how can you happy when you have no money? Money can't buy happiness, but believe me when I said that it sure does buy everything else. So every human has to fulfill their basic needs in order to reach happiness. When the basic needs are not even achieved, they will never be happy.
The problem is, the level of the basic needs of every person can differ one to another. One person can feel adequate with riding a bus to the office, but other may feel adequate if they can ride a car to their office. Now the happiness is actually lies in your hands. Where you can see yourself has ENOUGH basic needs?
On the other aspect, as a human being, we have a need in our social life, a self expression and a self fulfillment. We have to assess how our self in the environment where we stay, can you properly be yourself in the place that you wan to be or should you wear several different mask to several different group of people?
Don't get me wrong, some people can wear a mask and still be happy, but it is a fragile state of happiness. There's nothing wrong in getting help from others. Homo Homini Lupus, I hope I state the correct Latin terms of, "Human is a Social Being". So it is important to surround yourself with people who can let you be who you really are.
But there's a catch to that, hey... don't be selfish and push other to accept us as who we are. Some people are really struggling on that and that's natural. So like a motivational word that I read at Fitness First, "Be Yourself, only better".
You don't have to be someone else. Just be yourself, only better. We human are given with a great tool of adaptation. If you are an introvert working in an extrovert world, hey... it wouldn't hurt to go out there and explore the world once in a while. You don't have to be someone else, You can still be yourself, only better.
As one HRD master once said, "There's no bad personalities, just bad placement"
When we can express our self the way we want to be in the world that may or may not reject us, hey you can cast away the "worry" that stays in your heart and can actually living your life to its fullest and simply smile and be happy.
So tonight I look in a mirror... Though most of my day was spent alone, but I had a nice walk this morning with a friend and a nice conversation tonight with another friend which I am proud to call them Friends. I look at my reflection in my mirror and hey, that man is smiling. A soft upward curve on his lips. So I can conclude that today I am having a wonderful day and I am happy...
I wish I can sleep with that smile on my face tonight.
I have no worries of what happen tomorrow, because tomorrow is going to be my PRESENT in a few hours and I can't wait to see what the world has in store for me.
I close my eyes tonight on positivity, a silver lining that I found through a dark storm. A reason that I can draw a smile upon my face, a reason that I can claim happiness as my own for the day.
Wish you all can find your ow path to pursue your happiness.
And I wish I can live a happy live on a daily basis.
:)
image source:
http://s4.cdn.happinessxing.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/happyball.jpg
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