Monday, November 16, 2009

HOW TO AVOID UNHAPPINSS

Not that I am very happy or that I am not unhappy. I am also learning about life on a daily basis. Trying to keep my head above the water is a daily routine task. A few principles that I have understood and adopted to avoid unhappiness are;

(a) 1. Do that which interests you and be interested in what you do

Do the work which is of interest to you. Of course for that you have to know yourself and recognize the work which interests you. Money is not the criteria to choose profession or vocation. Money would flow from any kind of work. M. F. Hussian, Amitabh Bachhan, Michael Jackson, Bill Gates, Mukesh Ambani, Sachin Tendulkar are all involved in different fields and each collects crores for his work. There are plenty of such examples closer to home also. A common trait in all such people is the unlimited love, dedication and passion for their work. They follow a tough discipline along with childlike enthusiasm and focus for their work. Inspite of years put into it, for such people every new occasion is a moment of truth, moment of learning, moment of nervousness. Such is their love towards what they can give to others as joy, thrill, comfort, enjoyment or pleasure. As against that are those who spend a life time doing work which do not interest them, spreading unhappiness and pain all around.

(b) 2. Don’t try to be somebody who you don’t resemble from the inside

Be true to yourself; whatever you are; good or bad; intelligent or stupid; cunning or simple. Somebody said that ‘stress in when your mouth opens to say yes while heart wants to say no’. Stress creates unhealthy environment, scope for errors and majorly leads towards crime and deceit. Projecting an image and protecting that image is like constructing buildings in the air, without any foundation. Such structures are bound to fall and when that happens there are ruins and sadness all around.

(c) 3. Do not fear anything and accept everything that comes your way

There is a saying in Marathi, “Thevile ananthe, tashachi rahawe; chitti asudyawe samadhan”! A translation would be like this, ‘Accept your surroundings as has been given to you by the almighty, let your heart and mind be contended’. It is very crucial to understand that our surroundings are whatever they are because we have called for it and created it for ourselves. We always get what we deserve and not necessarily what we desire. Another way of looking at it is that these situations have been given to us to experience and cross ahead. Life is a journey for us to learn to love everything around us. All events good and bad happen to us so that we learn to love and be compassionate. Therefore whatever happens always happens for the good. There is nothing to fear because we lose nothing during our life time in this world. We are part of everything and everything is a part of us. The feelings of expectations and suffering of loss or success remains only a feeling and that to for a temporary period. Our attachment to such emotions only creates unhappiness for us. Success makes us want more success which creates fear of failure. Loss makes us want to avoid such mishappenings and we fear them too. All fear is unhealthy. Somebody has said, ‘Fear attracts like a magnet’.

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