The myth called Happiness
I'm a Sagittarian. And by that virtue I'm a die-hard optimist. Someone who never stops believing. Believing in what? In little things such as happiness, for example.
Guess what? After years of bouncing and trouncing I've realized that all these are just myths. That is my take from my life.
Most of all, happiness is always short-lived is what I've learned. It comes, like that fleeting gust of wind on a hot summer day, makes you feel oh-so-alive and oh-so-fresh, and then, just like the wind that couldn't care less, it is gone. And you're back to negotiating the sweaty hot summer day all over again.
If you were an optimist such as I, you'd probably wait for the next gust of wind. The next wave of happiness. But even for an optimist, there are only so many such cycles that can be attempted before you start losing your faith.
Maybe it's just my take on these things that has landed me here - where I am today. Distraught, empty and everything but happy.
Maybe my karma has finally caught up to me.
Maybe happiness just wasn't my cup of tea. Ever.
When you reach this point in life, when you start questioning the 'happiness' of obvious external factors, then you have reached a very important junction in life.
ReplyDeleteNot many arrive at this junction.
There are two roads leading from here. One where you continue with life as it is bobbing up and down with every wave of happiness or emptiness as it strikes, somehow convincing yourself that THIS is life!
Or if you have enough gumption in you, then you step out of your known, comfort zone to search for 'that missing ingredient' to true happiness. And that means taking the road less travelled, trodding into the less known world.
This may sound cliched, but true happiness DOES lie within you. But the path to that door and the tools to open the door are hard to find, lost in all the mire of 'spiritual' stuff out there.
I took that step in 2005, leaving behind a cushy job with an IT MNC. Feeling the same feelings that you have worded so well, I started looking around and fortunately found the door without much trouble. I have never looked back since then and I can truly say that I am now an easily contended person living simply, in this world with all its technology and innumerable conveniences, seeing the danger in them, seeing their addiction and deeply recognising that this is what keeps us away from true happiness - the addiction to all that life has to offer. I am learning how to enjoy without being addicted - very hard to do believe me.
And do you want to know the path I took? read here: www.dhamma.org
I am not saying it is for everybody, but unless you try it, you wont know....
thank you anonymous for your thoughts!
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