How to be Happy in Life?

No, I am not giving you some tips about becoming happy in life. I am just going to explore this question and hopefully give my own opinion. We all seek happiness and often we get confused between happiness and comfort. I feel that it is different from comfort, luxury, success and achievement. To me happiness means a state of condition where sadness can attack you less. If you are happy then you are cheerful even in most depressing and desperate condition. On the other hand, if you are not happy then you don’t find peace although you are successful and rich.

I am a big fan of the concept of Four Noble Truths of Buddha but real life is more complicated than what Buddha said. Just think of this sentence: Suffering ceases when attachment to desire ceases. Is it so easy to overcome desire? In fact, it is impossible to overcome desire or ceasing of attachment to desire. So, this advice sounds impractical for real life but may be, you should not discard it totally without giving a serious thought.

May be, we should try to be selective about which desires to pursue. We should try to pursue the desires that bring most happiness to us. Well, a new problem would arise because how do you know that the things you like a lot are good and would bring real happiness for you. For example, if you are fond of drinking wine (alcohol) then you know that drinking too much wine may lead to addiction and can cause serious damage to your health. So, if you want to be happy then you need to have some wisdom. Without wisdom, even if you can get happiness for the time being, it will not sustain on the long run.

If possible make a list of the changes that you want to make. Suppose, you have a bad temper and you get into trouble with others for that. First, try to accept your problem without giving any excuse and then you must want to change from your heart. As long as you give excuse to yourself, you will never be able to overcome it. It is really a very tough thing to accept our own mistakes. I can easily point out 10 mistakes of another person but it becomes very difficult for me to accept my own mistakes.

Until we can learn to accept that we make mistakes and we can pinpoint our own faults, it really becomes impossible to find true happiness. When you can find your own faults and can accept that they are really not good then you move a long way in your quest for real happiness. You see actors and actresses try to portray good qualities and good values in movies but in their own life, often they are very unhappy. So, they run into all kind of problems and often they end up being very unhappy. As long as you learn to accept your own faults and mistakes, you are just pretending like an actor.

So, you have to learn to embrace the reality and the truth. If you can accept your mistakes then you can try to overcome them and change yourself. Why not make a list of the 10 problems that you have with yourself? After making this list, just think about them and try to want them from your heart that you want to get free from them. You must want very strongly to get free from the mistakes or faults that you have.

Of course, you need to be patient if you want to get free from your faults or mistakes. It does not happen overnight. You will experience many defeats and as a result, you will feel frustrated. Failure is indeed the pillar of success. Secondly, when you try to change, you may find that people around you are not that eager to support. Even some of you may laugh at you and think that you are crazy. Don’t bother about them because it is your life and you must decide if you want to be happy or not.

If you are trying to quit smoking and all your close friends are fond of cigarettes then it is natural that you will get no support from them. Often, people think that honesty is stupidity, kindness is weakness and by being good you become a loser. No problem, let them think what they wish to. If you look around then you will notice that most people are not happy. They are not satisfied with their life. It is mainly because we live in a world where goodness is not valued and it was never valued in the past either.

When you can overcome your problems, mistakes, faults or sins even if not all of them but most of them- you will start to feel happy from your heart. Just being alive will bring you a lot of satisfaction.

If you have come to read this entry with the hope of finding some tips for becoming happy then I am sorry about that. Really, some tips cannot bring happiness for you unless you really want to change from your heart. If you are looking for some tips then read the following two articles:

20 Simple Ways to Get Happy

How to be happy in life: let out your anger

Why not to overcome the Writer’s Block!

Each and every writer on every corner of earth suffers from the writer’s block at one or another point of life. You will literally find hundreds of articles on this topic and many articles surely contain valuable tips on how to overcome this problem. In this blog post, I am going to try to convince you not to try to overcome the writer’s block. Don’t get shocked or alarmed before reading the post. Believe me, it is not my goal to prolong your writer’s block but I am going to discuss this topic in a different point of view.

I am mostly concerned with the matter that often we face serious problems in life and as a result, we cannot work properly. Some of us may mix up these problems with writer’s block. Let me give you an example from my own life. If you read this blog regularly then you know very well that I have been suffering from ill health for the last two years and I hardly could do any work. Sometimes, when my condition was not bad, I still could not write. When there was too much stress in life, I could not write either. You see for writing, you need some sort of mental peace and calm.

When we face too many difficulties in life at the same time, it becomes almost impossible for many of us to write. Perhaps, depression is another major obstacle and almost all of us have experienced depression in our lifetime. At first, I wrongly thought that I was suffering from writer’s block and tried very hard to come back to writing. This only made the situation worse for me because in addition to my other serious problems, assuming that I was suffering from writer’s block became even a bigger headache.

As a result, I became more ill and I felt more frustrated. That is why, although, I have recovered almost 100% now, I am not putting up any serious effort to start fulltime writing or blogging. I have offers of at least 3 projects now and one of them is really very attractive. Still, I have decided to take some more time and let the so called writer’s block continue. I want to come back when I feel I am 100% ready to write and I can work without putting any stress on my health or mind.

Enough of my problem. If you are really suffering from writer’s block then the first question you should ask yourself is: Is it really and only the writer’s block? Do I have any other serious problem at this moment?

Unless, you are struggling to pay your bills and you are in desperate need to earn some money, never force yourself to come back to writing when you are suffering from sickness or may be suffering in your love life. This may only make the situation more complicated and your returning to fulltime or part time writing may only get delayed.

With this post, I am going to stop talking about my health and from now, I am going to write about the things I want to write. Still, it somehow got related to my long illness. Sorry for that. 

The Real New Beginning

I know that I have suffered a series of false starts in the last two years. So, I am afraid to state that I am not sick anymore and it is a new beginning. Then, there is nothing wrong in dreaming. Yes, I need all the motivation and encouragement from myself to start again in life. There is my wife whom I miss a lot but she is supporting me 100% online.

Now, the only thing I wish to do is to get back full time work and the only skill I have is writing. There is no doubt that I enjoy writing more than anything else. At least, I can try to update this blog more frequently. I hope that I can do it from now. I really wish to write more in this blog but it never happened for the last 6 years. Yes, this blog is going to be 6 years old in coming February.

Most of the time, I just wrote here for increasing some entries for the network. For the last one year, I wrote mainly about my ill health. Most probably, after this post, I am not going to write much about my health. Instead, I just want to write about anything I like- I really miss it a lot.  

The wisest thing that I have done is not to try to come back to work in the last few months. In 2009 and 2010, this was the mistake I made- I tried to use my will power to come back to work. It was a stupid mistake but I am happy that I have learnt from my mistake. This time, I waited as long as needed and I am ready to wait another 2-3 months before getting back to full time work. 

The last Chapter

Yesterday, I could exercise for nearly 100 minutes. No, I could not do it at a stretch but I could not imagine of doing exercise for 100 minutes in a single day. Today, naturally, I am tired but I feel good inside. I have almost forgotten when it was the last time I felt this level good. So, you can be sure that I am enjoying every moment of life now.

I have lost almost everything in life. However, there is still one thing left- my marriage. I am grateful to God for this marriage because my wife is really very supportive. Because of her constant support, I have survived very tough conditions in the last one decade. I met her 9 and half years ago in Internet. These days, getting married through Internet has become common but 10 years ago, few people could imagine it especially if they were from two different countries.

These days, I am listening to the songs of the movie A Walk To Remember and here is one:

It is like the final chapter in my sickness saga. I am near to get back to normal life. I know that it will take another on year but I am not sick like past anymore. The worst is really over and from now on, things will hopefully get better and better.