Isn’t a fact that most of you want to feel happy in your life, but find it tough to feel so?

This search for happiness occurs in everyone’s life. But sadly, most of you find it impossible to feel happy in your life. In fact, many of you feel wretched and miserable about your life. You quote many reasons for your unhappiness.

• “I have relationship issues with my spouse, and I find it tough to hold my marriage together.”
• “I am not as successful as my friends\relatives.”
• “I fail in whatever I try”
• “No one loves me. So, I feel lonely and unsupported in life.”

This is just the tip of the complaint list you have about your life. You feel unhappy that your life is not good enough for you, and your plunge yourself into misery and unhappiness.

You must understand one simple fact of life. When you expect everything to happen according to your liking, it is not going to happen. If you feel you can find happiness in your life, only after overcoming all your problems, you will have to wait for an eternity.

“Amma, I am happy that at last I got the dress I had wanted to buy for a long time” my daughter looked cheerful. She was happy, because she could buy the dress she craved for.

But her happiness will be short lived, as her mind will look something else to make her happy. Almost everyone wants something to make them feel happy in their life.

This is where you go wrong. Expecting something to make you feel happy in your life will never work. Life will not always offer you everything you crave for. Your life will throw many challenges on your way. You will find yourself in tight situations, you wish had not happened to you.

You must swim across your problems to live through your life. You have no other go. Problems will definitely make you stressed and cowed down. But you have to fight it out in your life. It is sad that most of you would rather surrender to your problems, than go all out to tackle it.

During yesteryears, people were happier and much more relaxed.

Can you guess the reason?

It was because their life was more hassle-free and calmer, compared to the life you lead now. They did not have the cut throat competition, that you are compelled to face today. There was also no hankering after money, as you see today.

Yester year people, considered money as a means to buy things for them. They never thought money as a means to happiness, as it is seen today. It is sad, that happiness is now linked to affluence and wealth. The more money you have, the more you want.

What are the common reasons you feel unhappy about your life?

• You have unrealistic dreams, that you can feel happy in your life only when you are problem-free. This is the reason you feel unhappy and miserable, when you face continuous problems in your life. You become dejected that God has destined you to be unhappy.
• You compare yourself with your friends\colleague\relatives, and feel unhappy that they are better off than you.
• You want to be successful and when you meet with failures, you are unhappy that you are destined not to succeed in life.
• A small delay in having what you crave for, is enough to send you into a whirlpool of unhappiness.
• Even after getting the things you longed for, you become unhappy when you see someone else getting something better than you.

When your mind oscillates between one wish to another, you cannot feel happy in your life.

Happiness is not related to the money you have, but to the satisfaction and contentment you have in your life. Unless you are satisfied with what you are blessed with, you will never feel happy in your life.

Does feeling satisfied with your life mean, that you should be reconciled to your mediocrity and never try to fare better in your life? 

No!

Not at all.

Satisfaction is actually counting your blessings, and feeling happy for being blessed.

Most of you compare your life with that of you friends\colleagues\relatives and feel you are lacking in many ways, compared to them. This feeling of lacking robs the happiness you could have enjoyed, if you had only noticed the good things you are blessed with.

There is not a single person in this world who is not blessed with something. There is also not a single person in this world, who has everything in his life. What you are blessed with, will not be had by others. What others are blessed with; you will not have.

My life has always been one torturous journey from one problem to another. I was down in finance, was drowned in debt, and my husband was bed ridden with renal failure. My traumatic problems made me assume that I was the unluckiest person in the whole world, and that God had singled me out to show his wrath.

In my depression about my life, I failed to see the silver lining I was blessed with -my daughter.  She is very intelligent, responsible and very affectionate also. When I counted her as God’s biggest blessing to me, I found the happiness of my life.

Everyone has some silver lining in their life, which will give them the light they need in the darkness they face in their life.

Here is how you feel happy in your life!

1. Always count your blessings.
2. Be ambitious, but not at the cost of ignoring your family.
3. Earn lots of money, but do not become a slave to it.
4. Spend quality time with your family.
5. Forgo your unrealistic expectations about your life, as it will never happen.
6. Accept life as it comes.
7. Live for the present.
8. Do not take what others say about you personally. It is just their perception about you, and does not in any way define you.
9. Forget your unhappy past. It has no place in your present life, except for the priceless lessons you learned through it.
10. Do not do anything that might hurt others. Your sense of guilt will rob your happiness in a telling manner.
11. Never forgo your honesty, anytime in your life.
12. Like yourself. Unless you like yourself, you cannot be happy.
13. Accept failures as part of your success journey.
14. Do not idle away your life. You will eventually feel unhappy, that you have wasted your life doing nothing.
15. Feel thankful to be alive.
16. Be optimistic.
17. Never lose your hope, anytime in your life.
18. Do not expect to find your happiness in others. No one can make you happy, as good as you can.
19. Trust in God.
20. Do what you can for your success, and leave the rest to God.
21. Be grounded and humble.
22. Treat people with respect.
23. Do not ever think, that you are way above others.
24. Find happiness in small things.
25. Keep smiling- Everything changes for the better.

Conclusion

‘Rules for happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for’ Immanuel Kant.

Only when small things make you feel content, you will feel happy in your life. Do not search for your happiness in others. No one can make you happy, when you do not.

Always count your blessings. Feel pleased by the small things happening to you. Understand the simple fact, that happiness lurks within you and not outside you. Love your life, and feel happy to be alive today.