Life isn’t the sweetest candy. Sometimes, when I feel like the world is just
too heavy, I look around and find people who continue to live fascinating
and wonderful lives. And then thoughts come popping into my mind like
bubbles from nowhere – “How did their life become so adorably sweet? How
come they still can manage to laugh and play around despite a busy stressful
life?” Then I pause and observed for awhile… I figured out that maybe, they
start to work on a place called ‘self’.
So, how does one become genuinely happy? The first step is to love yourself.
My theology professor once said that “loving means accepting.” To love
oneself means to accept that you are not a perfect being, but behind the
imperfections must lie a great ounce of courage to be able to discover ways
on how to improve your repertoire to recover from our mistakes.
Genuine happiness also pertains to contentment. When you are contented with
the job you have, the way you look, with your family, your friends, the
place you live in, your car, and all the things you now have – truly, you
know the answer to the question “how to be genuinely happy.”
When we discover a small start somewhere from within, that small start will
eventually lead to something else, and to something else. But if you keep
questioning life like it has never done you any good, you will never be able
to find genuine happiness.
I believe that life is about finding out about right and wrong, trying and
failing, wining and losing. These are things that happen as often as you
inhale and exhale. Failure in a person’s life has become as abundant and
necessary as air. But this should not hinder us from becoming happy.
How to be genuinely happy in spite all these? I tell you… every time you
exert effort to improve the quality of life and your being, whether it is
cleaning up your room, helping a friend, taking care of your sick dog, fail
on board exams and trying again, life gives you equivalent points for that.
Imagine life as a big score board like those which are used in the NFLs.
Every time you take a step forward, you make scoring points. Wouldn’t it be
nice to look at that board at the end of each game and think to yourself
“Whew! I got a point today. I’m glad I gave it a shot.”, instead of looking
at it all blank and murmur “Geez, I didn’t even hit a score today. I wish I
had the guts to try out. We could have won!” and then walk away.
Every one has his own
definition of ‘happiness’. Happiness for a writer may mean launching as much
best selling books as possible. Happiness for a basketball rookie may mean
getting the rookie of the year award. Happiness for a beggar may mean a lot
of money. Happiness for a business man may mean success. So, really now, how
do we become genuinely happy?
Simple. You don’t have to have the best things
in this world. Its about doing and making the best out of every single
thing. When you find yourself smiling at your own mistake and telling your
self “Oh, I’ll do better next time”, you carry with you a flame of strong
will power to persevere that may spread out like a brush fire. You possess a
willingness to stand up again and try – that will make you a genuinely happy
person.
When you learn to accept yourself and your own faults, you pass step 1 in
the project “how to become genuinely happy”. As long as you know how
to accept others, you will also be accepted. As long as you love and know
how to love, you will receive love back ten fold.
Again, throw me that same question “how to become genuinely happy?”. I’ll
refer you to a friend of mine who strongly quoted- “Most of us know that
laughter is the best medicine to life’s aches and pain. But most of us don’t
know that the best kind of laughter is laughter over self. Because then you
don’t just become happy… you become free.”
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