Do You Postpone ‘Being Happy’ ?

Ever wondered what you really need in life to be happy? For most of us, happiness is a term that depends upon several thousand conditions that we impose on ourselves with because for most of us the purpose of this life is attaining success. However, if we take a look at the pattern of our lives, we find that our parameters of success change with every passing day, for some with every passing hour. Not that it is wrong in any way; however, in this life that can come to an end any second (like really none of us knows when death may strike) it is not fair to postpone our happiness to some other time. Or is it?

Let’s take example of my friend Kavya. Always a good scorer in academics, sports and extracurricular activities, Kavya made sure that she won every single competition in her school. However, every time she won a title, she told herself that she has to prepare for the upcoming  ‘X’ competition, and ‘Y’ contest, and ‘Z’ test.

While preparing for next test in her way, Kavya never realized that she has to start LIVING today. After school, she started preparing for her medical level entrance examination. Of course it was a challenge to crack AIIMS entrance test, but Kavya was Kavya, once she set the target she had to conquer it by ‘whatever-way-possible’.

And eventually she ended up securing a rank in AIIMS. This was followed by a grand party that her parents threw for us. However, contrary to how we thought she would behave (like on the top of the world or something) she was rather anxious and worried. Though she maintained a warm smile on her face, we being her friends knew that she had set another challenge up her sleeve now (God save her soul!).

It continued for another three years. After she completed (what she called her) basic medical education, we found her with the same anxious and worried expressions that by now had become typical to Kavya’s face. Life never stops and so it continued with the same pattern she had created for herself. In the course of five years whenever we happened to meet or talk on phone, she never seemed or sounded for that matter, happy rather, she kept getting more worried about future.

Suddenly with our kind prayers and after being sick of staying anxious all-the-time, Kavya had this self realization of sorts (which she later shared with us) that she never felt contented and happy because she could never appreciate the things that she had accomplished in her life. Of course, we could see how miserable she was all through the time and so we tweaked our lives so that we never find ourselves feeling like how Kavya always did.

Moral: Appreciate things that you already have. That does not mean you stop working hard, but reminding yourself to stay happy may just do the trick.

Also, my Art of Living teacher always says that there are 2 types of people. Type 1 do the mistakes and learn from them. Type 2 learn from Type 1's mistakes and stay happy forever (Now that's smart work) !!

Take your call and choose your type ;)