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