"I will be happy everywhere."

We had met after a really long time. I was little sad due to certain things in my life. After seeing this,he shared his insights about his life. He has talked and mentally supported many people across the world who had been having some serious life issues. " I have seen so much pain and problems of people that I started feeling that the only goal of the life should be 'being happy'. I learned that its really important to be happy. Be happy anywhere, everywhere. It takes nothing to be happy. I will be happy anywhere. I will be happy when I will be rich and happy even if I am a beggar. I just want to be happy. Do what makes you happy. Decide what you want and focus on that. Nowadays a problem with people is that they are not focused. They want to do everything. They want to try many things at a time and that creates hurdles. So its better to focus on one thing and progress. Happiness is really important. Happiness is within us." His thoughts were eye opener. I relearned the intensity of need to be happy. 

His words were travelling again and again across my mind. His statement -"I will be happy anywhere, everywhere." was playing inside my mind again and again. 

Why are we not genuinely happy in our life today? Why are most of us are complaining about some or the other thing in our life? I feel there are many reasons and this issue is a multidimensional issue. 

The very first and most important reason of our unhappiness is 'our tendency to expect' (The one I talk about many times). We have small small expectations from almost everyone in our life and from life too. We become easily upset if our expectations don't get fulfilled. Husbands yell at their wife if their food is not cooked properly. Parents scold at their kids if they don't perform as per their expectations. Girlfriends boyfriends complain about each other if they are unable to provide time to each other and so on. I am not saying that we have to reduce our expectations to zero as its nearly inhuman but at least we should try to understand each other. You may say that sometimes its important to keep expectation from people as it helps them progress. I agree. E.g. until and unless you expect that your child should get X%, he won't try for it. But my only point is that we shouldn't set unrealistic expectations. We all are human and not a machine. Your kid may not achieve an exam score equal to the one of your neighbor's kid as both are different individuals. Both have different level of abilities, aptitude, skills, aspirations and interests. We all are different hence our outputs will vary in quantity, quality, forms, types and shades. We can't treat everyone equally. We can't measure everyone with same scale. 

Another reason of people's unhappiness is that they don't accept the reality when they really need to accept and sometimes they put all the weapons down so easily that they forget about fighting. The key to happiness in this regard lies in knowing when to 'fight' and when to 'retire and accept'. Now obviously, when one should fight and when one should retire or accept differs from person to person. Here we should be able to exactly become aware about what's important for us, what's healthy for us so that we can decide where we have to fight for what and where we have to accept what and for what purpose. 

These 'tendency to expect' and 'lack of knowledge about when to fight and when to retire/accept' create one more hurdle. It prevents us from making adjustments.  During travelling by local trains also I have seen this many times that passengers don't give seats to others easily. In Mumbai's local trains, four people can easily sit on one seat but sometimes one really needs to struggle to maintain his fourth seat. This happens just because every passenger feels that he should be able to sit properly as he has paid for the pass or ticket. But in midst of this, he forgets that another person also has paid for the same. This negligence towards others' rights, situations and needs emerge from those expectations which are playing their part without our knowledge. So the key answer to this problem is to increase our understanding about others' situations. I am not saying that we should do it at the cost of our personal well being but we should be empathetic and sensitive towards others as much as we can. This will help us growing as a human being - socially and spiritually. Adjustments make life easier. They also enable us to strengthen our relationships with others and with self. It gives another level happiness. 

And the most important thing to create the happiness is that the awareness of the fact that our happiness should never depend on external things - Other people or other events. As my friend says, "Happiness is within us." Its the truth which has been proclaimed by many saints also. To extend my friend's thoughts further, I would say we all should find happiness in every single action we do so that this will keep on giving us happiness. 

So what are you waiting for? Don't take time to find happiness in your life. It is right there. You just need to find it. Discover it. Wish you all the very best. 

Stay happy. 

Take care. 

- Dipti S. A. Shinde.