How are you going to identify and shortlist cheerful and satisfied individuals around you? Smiling faces, luxurious cars, big empty-houses of concrete are insufficient to measure the happiness, nor they are the true indicators of the happiness. A peaceful soul is pivotal for being satisfied, and the person that is having a satisfied heart is the one who is happy at the core of his heart. So identification of happy individuals around you is really difficult task to do!
An act can be an art, but the judgement of the art is based on scientific and logical principles. How illogical is the science of art.
Shad Muhammad
The answer is straightforward and can be logically assessed by arithmetic and science. An Act can be an art, but the judgement of art is scientific and logical. Anyhow, you have to identify the attributes necessary for a person to be happy and analyze each individual in your life against those standards. Assess them on self-created rubrics and if someone satisfy more than half of the specified traits, he or she maybe a cheerful and positive person. If one attain less than 50% marks at the given criteria then there lies a person having negative energies and such persons are highly contagious.
1. 1. Get Away from Negative Energies
Try to get rid of them, or let me be more logical, one cannot get rid of every unhappy person, as we have to perform several businesses with them, so at least one can try to keep a distance between them and us. By that way, we will be able to keep doing our business with the negative energy people but at the same time we will be keeping us safe from their intentional and unintentional harm.
2. 2. Don’t Hate People but their Actions
Let me clarify as you might be getting me wrong. Here, you must understand that the negative energies are contained in the people but the people themselves are not negative. So please don’t hate negative people who are always criticizing, leg-pulling, disliking whatever you do, or how beautiful you preform, they still will hate you in their own way. It’s become their manners. Manners are nothing but the repeated habits we daily perform. But you should be kind enough not to hate the individual but clearly hate the act they do.
Here’s my happiness philosophy in a nutshell. I feel that I am directly responsible for what happens in my life.
Mike Cart
Your mind is undoubtedly wondering why, in our previous lessons, we learnt to love mankind and to refrain from passing judgment on other people’s actions and decisions. Allow them to live their lives. So, why am I advising you to stay a safe distance from negative people?
The answer is simple.
3. 3. Is Psychological Counseling a Load of Nonsense
You are not in the distribution phase of happiness, you are in the learning phase. When you understand the human behaviors, develop a strong attitude, and uncover the emotional motivations behind the other people’s actions, then the time would have come when negative people will neither interrupt your inner peace nor influence your optimistic outlook. Keep in mind that every lesson is not suitable for everyone to learn. That is the mistake we make when we do not follow stages. Then complain that nothing works. And think that the psychological counseling is a load of nonsense.
4. 4. You Get What You Give – Learn to Donate
One of the few characteristic of the happy people is that they take the full responsibility of their happiness. They don’t blame or criticize somebody other than themselves, and neither they live in the negative people’s company. They try to remain positive throughout their hardships. And guess what if you meet with them then you too will feel happiness in your heart.
Where ever they go, fragrance of happiness prevails through them. They keep sharing and spreading their happiness. Like the happy people about whom we discussed in our previous learning from The Donated Happiness – Give and Get and Appreciate Everything in Your Life. The more they distribute the happiness among other, the more happier they become. They get what they give!
5. 5. Unhappiness is Not the Product of Failure
Let us concentrate our conversation on accepting responsibility for our own pleasure. You are who you believe you are. When you are doing business that you have, you make the decisions. You are incharge of every bit and pieces of the success and failures of that business. Because your actions are your own, why should the accountability be placed on someone else shoulder? That is weird.
If you lost an investment while doing some business than that maybe due to your inadequate planning and execution. Accept your failures, but don’t allow failure to drag you down into the dungeons of darkness and disappointments. The unhappiness is not the result of the failure, but the decision of being upset and unhappy is. Meaning unhappiness is not the product of failure.
It’s really ironical that when we win, we love to take the full credit, but when we lose, we prefer to blame it on the bad luck and the unfavorable circumstances that we were living in.
Just Win Singh
6. 6. What is Eman?
Once a noble faqir was asked, what is Eman? He responded a wonderful answer, ‘If you get something, then you don’t get happy and if you lose something then you don’t get unhappy.’ World comes, worlds goes, but the one with Eman damn cares. A person of Eman is always satisfied at heart for whatever he or she has. Eman is an Islamic Concept. For further knowledge you should read the translation of Holly Quran.
Anyhow, the fakir statement taught us a lesson worth noting, ‘happiness and unhappiness are not linked to getting and losing’. How powerful personality you can become by overcoming the consideration of losing something big. There is wealth concept that is the Law of Abundance. Certainly will discuss the law of abundance in upcoming articles!
7. 7. Maturity Comes by taking Responsibility
The weak people blame others for their own actions and decisions. They keep linking their decisions by the influence of the others that could be the friends, family, siblings, social pressure, etc. Have been influenced by the others or not, you were the person who took the decision. No one pushed you to do something in a certain way.
Every mature person in an acceptable society, takes his or her decisions about the life by themselves. Mature people also don’t blame others for their personal actions. They accept their mistakes, realize, apologies by saying sorry, and move forward. Lingering with past is never their style of living. Freedom comes when you accept who you are and what you did and by doing the right thing to do. How beautiful is that.
8. 8. Life is the Game of Choices
You must have played the physical or the virtual games in your childhood. What is the common factor that is available in every game? Every game has choices and chances. And metaphorically you might also be playing the game of life. Similarly, like other games, here in the game of life we have choices and chances.
Once we decide and take action then we must face the consequences. The key is not in the action but in the decision. If you decide wisely, then more then half of the success has already been achieved. The decision make the difference. And the significant one. And listen, you always have limited chances to take the wrong decisions. A one error is a mistake, but a bunch of errors and frequent mistakes is a blunder, my friend.
9. 9. Seek Advice from the Experts
Below is the Poem ‘The Road Not Taken‘ by Robert Frost in which he explains the choices, the decisions making, and the unconventional way to think about life. Every decision is unique by its circumstances thus bring forth the new life of joy and excitement. Learn to take decisions by yourself after consulting with others.
Why consulting others specially the expert is important?
Simply because they are the experts and maybe they went through the same decisions. They know the pros and cons of every way. You might be thinking in one direction but other might other dimensions of the decision that you are going to take. Thus, vantage pionts maybe different, thus taking advice from other help you to know the situation better.
Here point should be noted that don’t seek advice from every non-sense person that you may encounter in this life. But only from those who know what are you going through and what things work or might work for the better future. Rest, decisions are yours and you will be responsible for whatever happens to you. That’s bitter, but true.
10. 10. The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
More Interesting ArticlesI took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
– Robert Frost
11. 11. The Stupid Law of Cause and Effect
If you change the cause then the effect will change. That is simple to understand but difficult to apply in its true manners. Everybody does do some mistakes and may take the wrong decisions. But not every wrong decision maker is unhappy. Why is that so?
If two people take the same wrong decision, then it is probable that one take it too personally and other just move forward. Hence, causes maybe the same but the effect may be quite different but the fact stays their, both persons took wrong decisions. But the effects were different.
What is the key in this lesson? Ponder over it and relate it to the above story of the Faqir and the article Live Now – Forget Past and Forget Future. And you will get your answer. Depression is nothing but an obsessed state of unhappiness.
Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
Emerson
12. 12. The Law of Compensation to be Happy
Many times in life many things are totally not in your control. Sometimes other’s actions cause a harm to your peace. I cannot blame you for that. Neither you need to take responsibility for the other people action that led you towards failure. And as you know the justice is not served for everyone. The injustice and the suppression is very common everywhere these days. Let’s accept it. Done. Then how are we going to get happy in such circumstances, the circumstance that are beyond our control.
The answer is simple. You will be compensated for your loss no matter how significant the loss it. Nature (Allah) keep record of every misery in His books. Allah don’t allow anyone to do injustice with anyone. Nor He allow anyone to cause harm to anybody’s life, respect and wealth.
Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.
Helen Keller
Rules are simple in every religion. Take life, of the life taker. Be happy, whatever bad someone has done with you, will be in returned done to him in a bitter manner. But that’s equality principle. Where is the compensation for the loss?
13. 13. The Direct and Indirect Compensations
Happiness is when we understand the complete life rather than watching few events or part of our life. Whatever bad is or was happened to you will be compensated for in complete form or in a better form in this world.
If you lost money, then you will be given more than that. The beauty is, Allah don’t take loans for longer. When He takes something then he returns back much greater than the lost property or soul. Sometimes we don’t understand why we are blessed so much? Reason is simple, you are getting the compensation for past or the future mishap.
14. 14. The Saving Account of the Happiness
So next time before complaining from the nature, remind yourself to be patient and be happy for the returns are much bigger then the loss. Like you will be aware about the Saving Account of the banks. What do they do? They take your money for 1 year and you have to bear the pain of keeping them away from utilization. Then after 1 year of investment period they return your money with added value. Such banking system is not allowed in Islam as it is not allowed to earn money on selling money. However, that’s another thing but the idea of saving account is significant in understanding misery of the life in true fashion.
Having the right to do it doesn’t mean it is right to do it.
Anonymous
15. 15. We Become What We Do
If the past has taught us anything
It is that every cause brings its effect.
Every action has a consequence.
We Chinese have a saying:
‘If a man plants melons he will reap melons’
If he sows beans, he will reap beans’.
And this is true of everyone’s life;
Good begets good, and evil leads to evil.
True enough, the sun shines on the saint
And the sinner alike, and too often
It seems that the wicked prosper.
But we can say with certainty that,
With the individual as with the nation,
The flourishing of the wicked is an illusion, for,
Unceasingly, life keeps books on us all.
In the end, we are all the sum total of our actions.
Character cannot be counterfeited,
Nor can it be put on or cast off as if it were
A garment to meet the whim of the moment
Like the marking on wood which are ingrained
In the very heart of the tree,
Character requires time and nurturing
For growth and development.
Thus, also, day by day, we write
Our own destiny, for inexorably…
We become what we do.
Madame Chiang Kai-shek
16. 16. Conclusion
I think for today it is enough. Will talk about happiness in upcoming articles. Enjoy you life with full passion and try to share your happy moments. Help others, so that you can be helped.
If you liked this article, then please do share it on the Social Media. If you have a question or suggestion? Then you may leave a comment below to start the discussion.
