How To Be Happy?

We all want to be happy more or less.. When I was a toddler, I went to school, and then I went to primary, school, secondary school, higher secondary school and then college and even university.. But at the beginning of this "educating a kid" process, I asked many people, why I need to go to school and study? They all answered, if I study I will get a job and I will be a pilot (don’t know what they had with a pilot), and then I will be happy..

But from that time only it didn’t seem right. Like if I get a job, then I have to work the whole day every weekday for the rest of my life.. How can this be a condition to be happy?

I was studying to get high marks, it was like working on something and it didn’t seem fun to me..

When I asked this question to other people, they told me that I am lazy and that is why I am saying this thing.. So I stopped asking the question altogether..

In my life till now, I didn’t travel to a lot of places, I went to maybe 4 places for vacation, in these 24 years.. When I was in those places, I always thought that people come to vacation to be happy and I tried to notice if I was happy or not, and to my surprise, I found out I was not…

This thing happened to me many times when I wanted a specific thing to buy, clothes, eat something nice etc.. But I thought that as I am young so these things should not matter as my thinking is really not developed.. But I was sad, I wanted to be happy but I couldn’t be… Is there something missing in me?? Why is everybody saying they are happy other than me??

I got so confused and angry that people don’t teach you to be happy in school, not even in your house and outside.. I thought I myself is a faulty machine, who can’t feel happy, but absurdly I felt sad and even cried..

Later when I came to know about personality development books and went into them, I started reading those and watching many videos on how to be happy and the theory of happiness and all, and it seemed that it is a thing you should be “now”.. It was tough, I who never had been happy have to be happy now, how?? It is not a choice.. But after reading so many books and watching videos and articles I came to a very difficult conclusion..

From the very beginning, happiness was an object for me, I was made to chase happiness and I had to work hard for it.. While doing all this work, which was definitely tiring, I thought happiness is something really out of the world.. as if it will be something so precious and bright and beautiful, which I have never seen before.. Otherwise, why do I need to work so hard? So I tried all the time to find that out-of-the-world feeling, which very obviously I couldn’t..

Because happiness is not the out of the world, it very simple and basic feeling, which I had at the beginning of my life.. When I played with my friends, watched movies, or listened to songs.. It was when I was going to sleep and woke up feeling refreshed and had a day full of adventure.. But it was not easy for me to feel that way, as I ignored those feelings forever, so I started a gratitude journal.. Where I wrote everything I was grateful for.. Obviously, there are a lot of things I wrote, but I didn’t had the feeling of gratitude..

Suddenly some years ago I learned to be happy.. And it was not through a pleasant experience I must say.. I lost one of my most loved people in the world, I felt sad, really sad and I couldn’t even accept the reality and felt like something died in me.. I adopted spirituality, many new books to get me through that phase, new movies, and new songs and I felt that first time in my entire life I understood the meaning of anything…

The sadness gave me the feeling of gratitude and gratitude led to the feelings of happiness.. Now I realise, I never felt anything very seriously and in-depth on me, I always had a reaction to everything without feeling those things or anything.. I needed something from outside, a boost of feelings which came from outside of my body, made my body feel totally stirred up and now I can use the mixture of the emotions as per I need..

It is so weird, how the feeling of sadness can give us feelings of happiness in the long run.. I think you just need the first dose of anything that you are lacking from outside, and then the rest will follow..

Don’t I feel sad anymore?? I do.. On the daily basis.. But I accepted the feelings that I have, and I recognise those and let them come and go. Most importantly when you are happy in the present you don’t have to work hard to be happy in the future, you work just bcz you love to work..

I hope everybody could understand that…